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  #1  
Old 29-01-21, 20:10
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Jason Ginn Jason Ginn is offline
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interesting!

Do you recall how many there were?
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  #2  
Old 01-02-21, 15:39
Perry Kitson Perry Kitson is offline
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In the late '70's/early 80's Levy's were in hot water over the sale of Continental AVDS-1790 engines to South Africa, as well as surplus Canadian Centurions that were reportedly going to India.
The engines were filed on export paperwork stating they were to be used in "coal trucks". Authorities were slow to realize these are the engines used to upgrade the Cents in South African service to Oliphant.
The Cents that were supposedly sent to India, long after they were buying Vickers MBT's and license building them as Vijayanta.

Perry
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Old 01-02-21, 17:02
maple_leaf_eh maple_leaf_eh is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Perry Kitson View Post
In the late '70's/early 80's Levy's were in hot water over the sale of Continental AVDS-1790 engines to South Africa, as well as surplus Canadian Centurions that were reportedly going to India.
The engines were filed on export paperwork stating they were to be used in "coal trucks". Authorities were slow to realize these are the engines used to upgrade the Cents in South African service to Oliphant.
The Cents that were supposedly sent to India, long after they were buying Vickers MBT's and license building them as Vijayanta.

Perry
The rumours for their disposal also included being shipped to Israel in ship's hold covered in grain.
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  #4  
Old 29-03-22, 17:07
David Dunlop David Dunlop is offline
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Does anyone know if Levy’s dealt significantly with surplus military wireless/signals equipment, or were they more focused on the vehicles and larger military equipment?


David
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  #5  
Old 30-03-22, 04:05
Bob Phillips Bob Phillips is offline
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Hi David, I think its safe to say that Levy Auto parts were first and foremost surplus dealers who would buy, sell and trade anything that turned a profit. They had connections with a couple of major surplus yards in the US and a yard in the UK. While at one time they had tons of #19 and related radio parts, their bread and butter business was vehicles, both military and commercial. I remember one of the old timers there telling they always made a handsome profit when one of their insured buildings burned down, which several did over the years. I dont recall any quantity of exotic radio gear around the place, but there was every kind of surplus material you could think of. I remember two long rows of CMP variant axles piled 10 feet high. Boxes and boxes of transfer cases for CMP, DiaT, Fox armoured cars, Dodges, jeeps etc. At one corner of the yard was a pallet stacked high with 105mm breechrings. I toyed with the idea of hauling them all home (for 3x scrap price) to build a patio or some such thing, but it never came to pass. Platform 62 was littered with hundreds of used magnetos for the W670 radial engine. I picked up 25 and later regretted not picking up a whole lot more. It was quite a place. By the way, the axle boxes shown in the photos were the basis for the storage platforms, later roofed over and by the time I saw the place crawling with wildlife.
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Old 01-04-22, 18:49
BCA BCA is offline
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David: Bob P. is quite right that Levy's was primarily a automotive parts supplier. Rumours of all sorts revolve around Levy's so one has to be careful; many I believe are fanciful hearsay. That said, a former senior Levy manager told me that as a young employee one of his tasks in the early 1950's was to source #19 Sets for re-sale to Pakistan. He travelled as far as BC to buy surplus #19 Sets from surplus dealers. Many sets were acquired in Montreal as DND surplus. Access to Levy's was a rare opportunity but a friend of mine relates that in mid-late 1970's he was in a building that had a large quantity of #19 Sets. He bought a MkII set for $10. In another building was a tri-wall full of new MkIII manuals of which he only was able to get a few. It is likely that these items were lost in a building fire in the late 1970's.
Finally, very little radio gear showed up during my extensive prowling of the storage bays in the mid-to-late 1980's: not much except a few #19 set control boxes and a few power cables.
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  #7  
Old 02-04-22, 07:59
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Hanno Spoelstra Hanno Spoelstra is offline
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Searching the forum certainly yields some interesting tidbits about Levy.

Almost 20 years ago some Sherman tracks they distributed turned up in the Netherlands via Greece. A truly international business, it was.

http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/sh...=Levy#post6219
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