I’ve been curious about this for a while. I was in an antique sale about 5 minutes from my house (Not a very large one, just one room with maybe 50 items for sale in it.), and I found a NIB SpectrAlert Classic in the back for three dollars. Obviously for that price, I wasn’t going to pass it up, even though I already had one at the time. Maybe this doesn’t seem crazy to you, but I walked in with the intention of perhaps seeing one or two overpriced light fixtures, if that, and came out with a new fire alarm.
Cool! Three bucks??! That’s a steal!
The “craziest” place i have found a fire alarm for sale, was at goodwill of all places… I stumbled accross a Fire Lite ANN-80 Annunciator, it was new in the box too! I remember it being behind the glass case where they kept the old video games and other small “big ticket” electronics. They had it priced at $25 and i grabbed it!
Annother local fire alarm find was at a Surplus Electronic Store, they had several Edwards 270 pull stations, new in box, however they were missing the break rods (odd…) They were asking $5 each on them, i was able to get them some how for $2 a piece i remember. I wouldnt consider that a weird place to find alarms, but thought i’d mention it!
Ceiling-mount white Exceder, Goodwill. A couple of years earlier I found a BNIB 2100S there.
I found a GE fire/security panel in an antique store in Colorado. It was missing the main panel though, so basically useless. Only thing it had was the box and the dialer.
I found a Wheelock Miz in a goodwill store near my house that used to be a Jumbo Video, and also found an Edwards Adaptabeacon at another goodwill store.
I have found several alarms for sale in crazy places! I once found 2 tubs of EST and Wheelock alarms for sale at a garage sale for $20 for each tub. Needless to say, I picked them up! I also have purchased an IBM 4031-2 horn at a goodwill, and a Simplex 2903-9001 with a 2901-9833 at a small thrfit shop in Nebraska.
When I was on a trip to Cincinnati, a restaurant called ‘The Firehouse’ had a Gamewell Masterbox as a decoration, but it was marked so you could buy it for some ungodly price if you wanted to.
School Garage Sale. Got a Truealert for like $2.50.
When you can go on Ebay and have a better chance (slightly) of getting one for a lower price.
Just curious. How much did they want for it? :lol:
I figured i’d also add that out of my 38 alarms, only five have been purchased online. The rest have been purchased at surplus and salvage stores.
Interesting, what kind of alarms if you don’t mind me asking.
I think it was in the $800-850 range.
The five alarms i’ve purchased online would be my Wheelock LHSR, my Fire-Lite BG-12, my Edwards 270-SPO, my blue Genesis, and a Wheelock AH that I never received :x .
The remainder of my collection came from the following two stores:
Tons of newer Wheelock and Siemens stuff, with a few other alarms, from a store (four locations) called Axman Surplus.
A two NS’s and a Honeywell S464 from a place called Bauer Brothers Salvage.
I found a Wheelock AS, RSS, and a Simplex 2099 T-bar at an antique store for $5 each.
Was it a vertical AS or a horizontal AS because the vertical AS horns are a lot more rare than the horizontal AS.