Those of you who visited and shopped Galveston's famous Strand Surplus Senter, also fondly called Col. Bubbies, will be saddened to learn that its owner, Meyer "Col. Bubbie" Reiswerg passed away yesterday.
Bubbie had such a wit that he was brought to New York as a guest on the David Letterman Show. He brought the house down!
But what I liked best about Bubbie was his ability to debate. More than once he took the Galveston School Board on. He was always far better prepared than they were. The winner was Bubbie in a slam dunk decision.
Meyer "Col. Bubbie" Reiswerg
BILL CHERRY, REALTORS
DALLAS - HIGHLAND PARK
214 503-8563
Hi Bill!
I am sorry to hear about "Bubbie". He sounds like he was quite a character...and I like anyone who takes on the big boys!
Miss Paula, forgive my delay in responding.
You would have liked Bubbie, and for the very reasons you mentioned. I remember the first and only time I ever had a purple passion. I was a sophmore in college. It looked pretty, tasted good and went down easy, but when that pure grain alcohol hit, I knew I had been had.
Bubbie was like that.
Hope all is well in Sacramento!
Your friend,
Bill
Dear Bill,
Growing up in Clear Lake about 15 minutes from Galveston, I remember shopping at Colonel Bubbies Surplus Shop thirty odd years ago. That shop was really about 50% museum. The thing I remember most is Bubbie was always wick with a smile and a joke. I am so sorry to hear about him passing. He will be missed greatly as he was such a fun character. Galveston won't be the same without him. What on earth will happen to the shop now?
Betina
Betina --
Bubbie's wife, Suzy and their daughter, Erin, plan to continue operating the store. Of course, Suzy's been there with him since the beginning, and Erin has worked there since she was a teen.
I used to love the cards in front of the merchandise bins, saying what the stuff actually was used for my the military, and Bubbie's take on what a customer could use it far. He did have quite a sense of humor.
Thanks for adding your thoughts to the Col. Bubbie post.
Bill
My father once described a knife he had in Vietnam. I went to Col Bubbies and described it to him and he walked over to the cubby holes and reached in and pulled one out. He said, "$250.00 and it's yours." I paid him and took it home to my dad. Since we then knew what it was called, we found the average price was about $40.00. I called the "Col" and told him what I had discovered and he laughed at me and said very sarcastically, "you buy all of them you want for forty dollars, and I'll buy them from you for forty," and laughed at me again. I lost all respect for him at that point and never went in his store again.
Curt, Col. Bubbie dealt in surplus that he bought in huge quantities by bidding at federal auctions. In each lot he hoped to get enough stuff that he could sell so that he would still make a profit even after throwing away the stuff he couldn't sell.
So unlike regular retail, the wholesale price/value of each item wasn't set by the vendor. That left him no method of formally marking each item to retail. For an example, he couldn't "keystone" a Marine cap, i.e., double the wholesale price of the cap, because he had no way to determine the what he paid for each cap.
By trial and error he learned what he could sell his stuff for. On top of that, he didn't even have local competition to use as a measure of whether he was correctly pricing his merchandise, so he was pretty much on his own.
So you went in and asked him if he had that specific knife. He said he did. You asked him what he wanted for it. He said $250.00. You didn't say, "Well, would you take X for it?" He may have said "OK" or "No."
Instead you bought it for $250 because at the time you thought it was worth that price to you. I don't see why you're disappointed with Col. Bubbie. You seem to feel you were conned. That conclusion is not supportable at all.