Where the hard-to-find parts are found...and on hand

We don't just buy and sell obscure parts – we find them fascinating and we love that our customers feel the same. Our customers range from...

Unlike many of our competitors, we know our parts. We know what they do, what they are used for, and where they came from. And that's no small feat when you have more than 300,000 line items of material manufactured from 1920 to 2024 — almost the entire Industrial Revolution!

When our customers have questions, they can speak to knowledgeable staff about what their needs are and find help.

Fresh out of high school and already working full-time as a Steamfitter, Bob Grinnell decided to purchase a batch of military surplus items and resell them out of his father's garage. Also a radio enthusiast, he was traveling to thirty-five Hamfests a year!

In 1981, Bob printed his first catalog, and that's when Surplus Sales of Nebraska was really born. By 1997, Surplus Sales of Nebraska had its own website (back then a pretty big deal), and items were being sold across the web and shipped all over the world.

Always wheeling and dealing, Bob was focused on filling his warehouse with inventory. A potential deal with Compass Technical Services set him on a treasure hunt just a month after the 9/11 disaster. It was a shocking environment traveling to Paterson, New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from NYC and the smoldering Twin Towers.

Bob made the deal to buy Compass Technical Services, a surplus business and small manufacturer of military equipment. The volume of a National Guard Armory, wall to wall, was 2.5 floors. He and his team packed 29 semi-trucks over the entire month...one per day. Each truck maxed out at roughly 40,000 pounds. After what started as a 7-10 day excursion, the team successfully packed 580 tons of fragile surplus in 29 days to bring back to Omaha.

And the hunt for treasure hasn't stopped – Bob still enjoys the thrill of finding, buying, and selling surplus goods and has built a business that serves customers worldwide.