Billings Army Navy Surplus ready to relocate across street

Even for a small family, moving is a pain.

Eddie Schmidt, owner of Billings Army Navy Surplus on North 29th Street, said leaving the store that’s been there for 31 years means moving a lifetime collection so large that he calls it “ugly.”

“We probably have 10,000 different items,” he said.

Like a sheepherder’s wagon, the standing-room-only store features outdoor and military gear stuffed in every conceivable nook.

But last fall, an opportunity too good to pass up came along.

Schmidt made an offer to Ben Brown Sr. to buy his vacant First National Pawn shop across the street at the corner of North 29th and Montana Avenue.

“I’ve been a part of the downtown

for 30 years. I don’t have to leave my comfort zone now,” Schmidt said.

No price was disclosed, but he called it a “good deal” that gives him 7,000 square feet of display space instead of the 4,400 square feet his store has now.

Brown’s former office, an 1,100-square-foot space north of the pawn shop, will be leased out to another company.

“I enjoy this business every day and this building kind of put a new spark in it for me,” Schmidt said.

Stacks of metal Swedish bunk beds are a pain to move, but Schmidt said he’s probably sold 2,000 beds to guest ranches and oil field man camps.

A 250-pound practice bomb hangs from the rafters. There’s a stack of fire-red buckets from the Belgium Army. And a steel Addressograph from the 1930s — a typewriter attached to a machine that stamps out dog tags — will be saved.

“I swore I’d never move it because it’s so damn heavy,” Schmidt said.

A Lassiter/Kaufman glider frame dated 3/8/1943 dangles from the ceiling. Schmidt bought the glider, most likely used in the Normandy invasion, from a collector in Southern California and is asking $10,000 for the World War II artifact.

“That’s what’s about left of these. They came in pretty hard and most of them just shredded,” he said.

But there are no guns for sale. Guns demand a major investment in inventory with little profit margin for most dealers, he said.

A Minneapolis company that will be filming at Heart Mountain in Wyoming is buying stuff from Schmidt. And last year, The Discovery Channel shot video in his store to develop and sell a TV reality show based on survival gear. The crew checked out five stores scattered around the country but chose Schmidt’s lifetime collection and colorful customers.
Read more


By Jan Falsta, BillingsGazette.com