A SURPLUS OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN
Few businessmen in Calgary have the know- how to procure a tank— or two. None ( probably) have been robbed, then caught the thief after he crushed himself under the stolen truck. Army surplus is full of stories, and over 60 years, Crown Surplus— part stor
Few businessmen in Calgary have the know- how to procure a tank— or two. None ( probably) have been robbed, then caught the thief after he crushed himself under the stolen truck. Army surplus is full of stories and, over its 60 years, Crown Surplus— part store, part museum, part junkyard— has stockpiled one of the finest collections in the city.
Outside Crown Army Surplus the morning dew steams off oil drums in the warming sun. In the air are sounds of tools being dropped and the beep- beep- beeping of a forklift as owner John Cumming inspects his latest acquisition: a pile of expired Navy life rafts. The Crown yard is an ossuary of rusted trucks, many with bullet- holes in their windshields. In one corner is a small mountain of steel ammunition boxes whose owner said he’d return to claim them. That was years ago; John assumes the man died. In another, an anti- aircraft gun is aimed eternally at Smithbilt Hat Factory across the way. Not one of the towering poplars were planted here; seeds simply fell inside the barbwire fence decades ago and, like the barrels and boxes and rafts, found purchase.
To some, surplus is synonymous with junk— used, smelly army gear— and the yard nothing more than a mechanical wasteland. But most army gear sold commercially is never unpacked, let alone used. The perennial nature of war, the inconstant size of armed forces and ever- evolving technology spells a predictable surplus of equipment.
“My name is Gord Cumming and I sell goods the army no longer wants but the public does,” begins the first of hundreds of ad columns John’s dad, Gord, wrote in the Herald between 1970 and 1980. In one, he had 20 tonnes of decommissioned machine guns. The Sten, he wrote, was born of necessity; England had no submachine gun in 1939. “With that sort of foresight you wonder how we won,” he quipped.
Each week, Gord would type a new column about an old item and enliven it with his characteristic ba- da- boom one- liners. He pitched used army trucks to hunters and farmers, noting six- wheel- drive was ideal for the backwoods and “well- protected against small- arms fire if you’re having trouble with your neighbours.” He guaranteed bootlaces, offering to replace and install them at no charge. In the 1970s, as military wear came into fashion, he prided himself on his foresight, saying it was like “having a corner on the buggy- whip market and learning that the automobile is to be banned.” Some sales pitches changed over the years. Others, like “The only thing inflated is our rubber boats,” have not, as evidenced by John outside in the forklift.
Gord is 83 now, and he too is a constant. In his office he thumbs through ad copy from1974, reading aloud and cracking up at his decades- long running jokes about inventory being piled floor to ceiling as a means of reinforcing the structural integrity of the building.
“We haven’t sold much by the looks of it— the place just keeps filling up,” he says. Behind him, on a shelf hanging aslant under their weight, is a pile of armoured telephone cords, a bugle, a jumble of propaganda posters and coats of arms with lion passant, fleur- de- lis and chevrons. There’s also a good deal of dust.
Crown has been a family business for three generations. Gord’s father, Al, opened it in 1953 at the end of the Korean War. Originally R& S Surplus, it was located on 9th Avenue downtown, a few doors down from Wolf ’ s Gun Shop. What R& S stood for is a mystery— Al and his partner Walt simply painted over the previous sign that read R& S Welding. Gord went to work there at 22. It was his mother’s belief that if the store were more of a family affair, her husband would come home for supper rather than patronizing the nearest pub. The strategy worked. The family business grew bigger and busier. Afew years later, the father and son moved the store “out of the high- rent district to save you money,” as Gord wrote in his column. He was kidding: “As a matter of fact, until we moved in, it was a highrent district.” They set up shop twice in Inglewood before landing at the
current location in 1955 and changing names. They chose Crown Surplus after the motherlode of Canadian military miscellany: Crown Assets.
In the early years, Gord boosted the store’s renown by paying Herald columnist John Hopkins to produce regular ad columns. Hopkins told him he worried Gord would discover how easy it was to write about the surplus business, which overflowed with stories. When Gord eventually took over the duty, the two stayed friends. In the store’s annual catalogue, Hopkins ribbed that Gord had “all the appeal of a wounded grizzly,” and called Crown “the most disreputable- looking building south of the tree line.” He wrote: “Mr. Cumming holds the record for stocking items that had absolutely no reason to be manufactured,” and “Defying all the laws of merchandising, community relations, good taste, cleanliness and pricing, he has for years provided an enchanting shopping experience.”
Despite the enchanting experience, the store has never bothered with a slogan. After the first few decades, Gord made a few joke suggestions ranging from “Where bayonets call home” to “The store Heritage Park wants.” He never settled on a slogan, but today a sign in the store reads: “Canada’s oldest & best genuine army surplus.”
Hopkins was right about one thing: the store’s unlikely success. In Calgary, with its rapid growth, business milestones are measured by improbability. Ten years is an exception; 20 a real rarity; 30 years makes a business an institution, and anything past that is damn- near unheard of. Sixty years— well, only a tiny handful of Calgary business owners can boast such longevity. T he men ( and one woman) who work at Crown Surplus have never seen active duty, except by a loose definition of the term. Gord played band in the Navy reserves, but says his dad, Al, “avoided it as best as he could.” Although a non- military troop, they still serve a noble military purpose. Surplus, after all, is otherwise waste. Buying, collecting, sorting, cleaning, fixing and selling old gear is “recycling before recycling was cool,” says John.
He, Gord and the staff share several hallmarks of military life. For one, there’s the camaraderie. For another, each is a raconteur of war stories.
One day, John and a customer were trading tips on deer hunting when a man with a heavy accent butted in—“You call that hunting? Summer of ’ 42. That was hunting.” The man was a German machine- gunner who said he’d mowed down wave upon wave of Russian soldiers until he was overrun. The Russians presented him with an option: join their ranks or die. “So I turned my gun around,” said the man.
The store is a magnet for characters. On any given day, veterans or hardcore collectors visit Crown to buy or sell. Some customers come in everyweek. The clientele ranges from fashionistas to survivalists, mercenaries to the odd skinhead or neo- Nazi. The presence of the latter has led to accusations that Crown sells hatred. The store does indeed carry merchandise adorned with swastikas and the famous S. S. Death’s Head with the motto “Death or Glory.” But John argues that
not selling them would be offensive. He likens that to ignoring history, and argues that soldiers died for Canadians to have the right to wear whatever they want. “How do you distinguish a re- enactor froma neo- Nazi? Howdo you knowthe personal beliefs of a biker who owns a Confederate flag? I’m not here to judge,” he says, giving as an example any number of products— knives, replica guns, bear spray— that someone could, if they chose to, misuse. “Now, if a youth gang walks in and wants to buy 20machetes, I question that.”
“We also have our doomsday people,” he says. “We have more of those every day.” They stockpile rations, water, extra cash and something to trade, usually booze. Most are on about lit up Beaker head. Crown Surplus has even served as the residence for a wayward writer for two summers. The Crown yard was a home for my home— a 1969 Airstream trailer that I bought before I had a place to park it. Out of 50- odd Calgary landowners whom I asked, nay, pleaded to take me in, it was Gord and John— who’d hosted every type of visitor over the years and who loved a good story— who figured what the hell.
Through the years the store has outfitted the film industry with uniforms, firearms, tents, torpedos and props. Staff members have shot the breeze with the likes of Radiohead, Dwight Yoakam, Jan Arden, Slipknot, a very dishevelled Tom Hardy and even Cher. ( She bought a Scots a volcano eruption in Yellowstone National Park. John sees their point about natural disasters, using the Quebec ice stormthat knocked out the power grid as a good example. “We used to have these people come in and ( we’d) think they’re nuts. Then the more you listen the more you start going, ‘ yea, I can see that.’ It doesn’t have to be zombies or volcanoes or whatever. It can be something as simple as ice.”
In recent years, Crown has served as a setting for TV shows and movies. It has hosted book launches, and served as the backdrop for countless music videos and wedding pictures. Last fall it was the holding pen for a six- metretall, fire- breathing mechanical octopus that
Guard tunic and some muscle shirts.) One guy entered the store and John recognized him right away— he thought he was a regular customer— greeting him with a hearty, “Hey man, long time, no see.” It was Heath Ledger, who coolly replied, “Yeah, whatever man.”
Others come to Crown with no intention of buying anything. One winter years ago, Gord heard a crash and looked to see his barbed- wire gate lying in the middle of the street. A thief had taken a three- quarter- tonne truck ( army trucks don’t have keys, only a switch) and busted out of the yard. He tried to go up nearby Scotchman’s Hill, but the tires just spun. “He jumped out of the truck,” recalls Gord, “ran around the back of it, slipped and fell, and the truck rolled over his legs. That’s how the cops got him.”
Since Day 1 the store has been home to camo- coloured calico cats and Australian blue heelers, which serve as both military mascots and some of the store’s most valuable employees. One night the guard dog, a former Calgary police German shepherd, was barking, after chasing two would- be thieves onto the store roof. The arresting officer’s name was Ken Squirrel, and once more, Crown Surplus was in the Herald, this time with the headline: “Dog and Squirrel catch thieves.”
Sorting through tonnes of army surplus has taught the gang at Crown Surplus a thing or two about the inner workings of militaries. They know that the Canadian army is not a rich army, so “everything’s pretty much destroyed by the time you get it,” says John. As a “for instance,” in 12 years, the U. S. military outfitted its troops with four uniforms: six- colour desert camouflage (“chocolate chip”), three- colour desert and two different multi- cams. Over the same period, Canada’s soldiers, by contrast, wore fatigues the colour and texture of pool table felt, then switched to digital green camo (“relish”) in Afghanistan. It wasn’t until the end of that mission that they were issued proper desert camo, earning the earlier army combat uniform— ACU in military nomenclature— the nickname, “I See You.”
Gord also learned that a 90mm anti- aircraft gun weighing over nine tonnes was “obsolete even before the Canadian army got them,” as he wrote in a June 1970 column. ( Still, he keeps one around because he “always thought one in the front yard gives the place a nice, homey atmosphere.”) Staff discovered that the Vietnam conflict didn’t produce the expected bounty of surplus because most equipment rotted in the humidity. What survived, like some flak vests, Gord picked up for cheap, but couldn’t sell; there’s no use for them in a peaceful country. The store bought iconic UN helmets and learned that the blue paint rendered the Kevlar ineffectual. Crown Surplus has seen gear withstand years of rigorous testing, and, on the flip side, seen low- bid contractors skimp on life- ordeath equipment. “In this business you see it all,” Gord says. “Some belts are almost 100 years old, still good to go, other stuff is made for current operation and it’s just crap.”
They also note a marked difference in countries’ attitudes toward war. In all his years John has never seen a Canadian gas mask made for kids. That sort of equipment exists in countries with mandatory military service, such as Russia— where the masks come in all sizes, from infants to teenagers— and Israel, where masks come with blue, pink and yellow filters. “Bright colours, so kids aren’t terrified of them,” says John. “If you don’t have any children, you don’t have an army, a next generation of soldiers.”
In one of his first columns, Gord predicted he would go out of business as soon as there were no more armies. While the store is still going strong, genuine surplus is harder to come by. Like everything, the biz changed dramatically with the arrival of the Internet. Crown used to buy thousands of pounds of scrap wool or scrap metal or scrap leather or scrap canvas or rubber, or whatever. But it has all dried up. The military used to mete out bid sheets to a select few surplus buyers. Now the average basement combat- junkie can order it online.
The store used to have a full- time seamstress to patch and sew huge piles of threadbare uniforms. Crown no longer has room for all that inventory, so there’s no longer a need for a seamstress. And the store hardly buys from the Canadian government, anyway. After the FLQ crisis, when kidnappers dressed as soldiers, the military put an end to recycling uniforms. ( Now, when Canadian uniforms have served their purpose, they are spray- painted with a “D” for destruction.)
Instead, Crown gets the bulk of its surplus from the U. S. But even the American military has scaled back its uniform development. For example, on mountain terrain, its soldiers wear whatever professional mountaineers wear. “We’re buying less and less fromthe military and more from the manufacturer,” John says.
Crown is now divided into the store- side of tactical gear and the museum- side of vintage. Some items straddle both— timeless staples of the surplus biz like the classic American Navy peacoat, which hasn’t changed since the Second World War, and sheepskin shearling flight jackets. ( Tom Hardy bought two when he stopped in.) Surplus— vintage and practical— it seems, is always in fashion.
“Real surplus lasts a long time,” says Gord. “It may be 50 or 60 years old and it will last another 60 years.”
The same could be said about his store.