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Comment by kev009 | Hacker News Reader

Every major metropolitan area has something like this because the market for used office furniture is ubiquitous and not limited to a small geography of tech companies. If you need some sturdy training tables for projects or some metal bookshelves they can be had for next to nothing at these places.

The one thing that has become a bit harder to find are lab and assembly workbenches. That stuff used to similarly cheap 20 years ago.

Another fun one is the usually poorly named "electronics recycler" - the kind of stuff rolling through these can be astounding, and they usually have people earning minimum or close to minimum wage dealing with it all - which yields strange pricing (some great deals, some preposterous) and a lot of stuff just getting dismantled/crushed/shipped overseas.

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Weird Stuff, Halted, Alltronics and Excess Solutions sold the electronics + misc. When I'd feel like I needed some inspiration, I'd often go and pick up some weird obscure failed (or prototype) project. Once I found a floppy disk carrier that belonged to a fellow employee (based on the handwritten label) from my first job, 20 years earlier.

Excess Solutions also sold more of the furniture stuff, workbenches, and, strangely, hotel surplus blankets, lighting fixtures and wall coverings. My $20 living room couch came from there - I think it was originally from Ikea but it's still pretty solid. The fabric is faded with a particular stripe and I imagine had spent it's previous life in the lobby of some software company where the sunlight would find it's way through some half broken blinds to mark the passage of time by fading this couch.

Weird Stuff I know didn't have their lease renewed by the property owner (google) and most of it's stock was scrapped as waste.

Losing Weird Stuff Warehouse was one of the bellwether signals for me to leave the Bay.

As I remember,Excess picked up a big chunk of Halted stock, but I heard the Excess location in San Jose closed (eBay store still open). Anyone know current status?

University surplus stores are always fun to browse. Lab equipment, machine tools, great stuff.

These are great for vintage lab gear too. In college I got an old flammable chemicals cabinet, which we refinished into a liquor cabinet.

A lot of that stuff is posted on govdeals.com as well.

The one thing that has become a bit harder to find are lab and assembly workbenches.

I bought a 6' and 12' assembly benches, complete with overhead lights, when Hayes Micro went under 30 years ago or so. Paid less than us$200 for them. Still going strong in my shop.

Next to nothing is an overstatement, er, understatement.

Be prepared to pay like 50% of retail +/-25% depending on what the product is. You pay a lot for the convenience of them holding inventory so you can just walk in and buy things on any given day.

If you want real savings auctions and classifieds are where they're to be found but obviously there's tons of overpriced stuff there too.

You will find different economies by the product, the two I listed are specifically ones that tend to be available for well below what you are saying. For instance, a new steel bookcase from Hon or Sandusky is $400-$800 depending on dimensions and you undergo a lot of stress dealing with shipping contractors probably damaging it. If you roll up in a pickup, or with a trailer or moving truck you can get them yourself for $25-50 in my metro area. Training tables are a similar affair, too heavy and awkward to sell widely but universally available and great to repurpose for shop use. Someone else mentioned cubicles, those tend to be way sub-priced even from name brands like Herman Miller because they are "out of style" -- if you have a large space it is a bargain entry for a high end office set.

If you want something desirable to a wide swath of people like a Herman Miller Aeron chair, yeah expect to pay for it. But if you are flexible, you can find deals. I got Steelcase Leaps for my workspaces when they were not well known for $200 and think they are a better chair than the more recognizable Herman Miller ones..

Auctions are great but they are by nature hit or miss. Preview access is sometimes limited so it's more of a gamble than even a used retail purchase and you may need to take and figure out what to do with a bunch of something when you wanted a smaller quantity.

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