American Science & Surplus

We’re kicking off today’s 2020 PopCult Gift Guide posts with a website recommendation, so you can shop for your loved (or liked) ones from the safety of your home.

American Science & Surplus has been around for decades and publishes one of the most entertaining catalogs on the face of the Earth. They sell surplus items that include electronic components, gadgets, tools, toys, military pouches, cooking supplies, art supplies, pop culture oddities, educational materials and anything else they can get their hands on, cheap.

This is a great place to find gifts for the science enthusiast on your shopping list. They sell all kinds of motors and lights that can be used for home robotics. They also have military suplus gear that can be repurposed into all sorts of things. And where else can you find a three-foot-long test tube, listed in their catalog as “Test Tooooooooooobe?”

Your PopCulteer and his lovely wife made a pilgrammage to their store in Chicago a couple of years ago, and it was a life-changing experience. We don’t recommend that this year, since you’d have to quarantine for two weeks after arriving in the Windy City, but their website is the next-best thing, in terms of finding offbeat, unusual, extremely useful stuff that you didn’t know you needed.

The American Science & Surplus website is the first stop for gag gifts, or “different” ideas for the “different” people on your holiday shopping list. Seriously, they have tons of cool stuff. Just go look at their site.