Best Places to Find Surplus Electronics, Old Circuit Boards & Vintage Parts in SE London

Alan Winstanley writes in his profile here: "... My interest in electronics kicked off as a young teen in the
1970s, when I would cycle to the garbage dump and return laden with old circuit
boards, radios, motors and a motley array of fascinating spares ..."
Where does one find all that precious "junk" these days? In my experience, nowhere.

I live in SE London and one happy day discovered a Display Electronics' treasure house of such stuff . The shop was just up the road from the Crystal  Palace football ground.
 Display Electronics is still going at nearby Thornton Heath, providing impressive looking period electrical gear for use as backdrop on film sets . But alas it is years now since the shop near the Crystal Palace  ground closed. I have yet to find another like it.

There must be mountains of surplus junk electronics and electrical gear around these days but I imagine anyone found scrounging about on municipal garbage dumps looking for it would be quickly chased off these days in the name of health and safety.

Indeed so, our local rubbish dump is covered by CCTV and ANPR cameras too, plus dire warning signs about the legalities of sorting through rubbish.  The grey suits in town halls have found their feet, and of course they gold-plate any prevailing recycling laws.  You get prosecuted for throwing away a blade of grass. There are occasional vintage component fairs and old firms like Greenweld.co.uk (an old EE favourite) still trade in surplus, I used Display Electronics myself but there isn't the money in salvage like there used to be.
Wonder what Edgeware Road is like these days? Henrys Radio etc?

Like Alan I was a regular visitor (also by cycle!) to garbage dumps  in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) where i lived as a child.  Rhodesia was definitely NOT the centre of the electronics universe and parts were (for a 13-14 year old) expensive and difficult to get.  Fast forward 50 years and I'm still collecting bits, now in Australia which is THE throw-away society.  A lot of older through-hole stuff is still being thrown away and gives rich pickings. Commercial equipment usually has high quality components that would cost a bomb if you bought them.My best acquisition recently was a 1KVA UPS thrown away from a lift refurbishment at our local shopping centre.  Still works with about 90% of rated capacity..I even wrote an article for EET about my recovery efforts:https://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1320904
Michelle O'Brien...your profile says you're a journalist so I bet you could write a good story or two about your electronics adventures.   Get in touch with Max Maxfield (if you can't find a link just reply here and I'll get him to contact you) and he can get your name up in lights.....Cheers // David

Michelle I have not addressed your question...where to get e-junk!  Do you get kerbside junk days when people put stuff on the side of the street for council to collect?  If so they can be productive sources, but mostly consumer equipment, mostly old CRT TVs which are not that good for parts.   Councils sometimes have e-waste collection points - they may let you have some things.  But they're mainly PCs and phones, again not rich sources for the amateur.  The best thing is to get someone who works in the industry to keep a lookout for you.  I do so I am lucky, but I have other guys looking out for me and sometimes get amazing stuff.  I've got tons of 74 LS / HC and CMOS ICs off old PABX boards - along with DC-DC converters and the like.  University science and engineering departments may also be good - if you can get one of the techies there to look for stuff that is being chucked out you will get some good stuff.  Lastly don't be scared to look in skips in likely places (dumpster diving they call it in the US) - I've had some of my best finds there too.  Good luck

David,  Britain is horribly over regulated by armour-plated recycling laws, can't take anything from anyone else's kerbside boxes, can't go dumpster diving, can't recycle it without a licence, can't throw it away - if we give our junk to an itinerant traveller who 'offers' to recycle it for us,  if he isn't licenced and just fly-tips it then it's us who get fined. If someone dumps junk in a ditch belonging to a farmer, the farmer's made legally responsible for disposing of it properly. The whole thing is very perverse. To think of the amount of stuff (including an old Mobylette moped!) I salvaged from the council tip! No questions asked! 

Try amateur-radio flea markets, also called hamfests.

Also try amateur-radio flea markets, also called hamfests.

In addition to the hamfests, it may be worth your while to become friends with local Amateur radio operators. I recently helped to clean out the shop of a deceased ham who had a significant collection of "junk.  I've still got more than I want of it....

The only place I know of in my local is in Quiapo/Raon, Metro Manila, Philippines.

That sounds really exciting. I salivate over David Jones' dumpster finds (EEVblog) and it makes me wonder how commercial equipment in Australia are just thrown away like that.

@Mich@el: You are welcome to look through some of my junk ( I live near Portsmouth ) some  is off to E-Bay as collectables like Apple lle and Acorn BBC B. 50 years ago I had JobStocks a war surplus electrical outlet in Walthamstow to browse and spend my pocket money on.  Sadly no longer its just small houses now.I tend to use E-Bay searches to trawl for my latest want.Best Crusty aka (Mike)

Ha haI'm tempted to add the names of certain high street stores as the definitive place to find junk. We all know whom they are...:)Funny, I don't remember meeting any of you as a child but apparently we were all doing the same thing. Cycling to the dump which was always an adventure whether you returned with something or not.
One of my best finds was a length of "chicken wire" a few feet in length. Growing up in the days when neighbour's would discipline unruly children (who then got it again when inevitably parents found out) we were an outdoors bunch and throwing stones at each other was a typical pass time. Wearing a hard hat "liberated" from the local building site (nobody there bothered to wear them) and covering myself with the chicken wire, extended from my body by sticks jammed in my snake belt, I became a tank and stormed the opposing gang immune to their ammunition. Great fun until my mum found out and confiscated it. The wire then went on to protect our "bin", which was just a plastic bag dangling from a metal rim, from dogs.However as Alan states, in the UK now it is incredibly difficult to obtain junk. We know where it is but you can't touch it. I rarely even see scrapyards now. If you become friendly with the guys that man the smaller dumps you could possibly pick up as well as drop off, but that would be unofficial of course <s>
For "junk" electronics I'd probably say visiting a car boot sale would be a good start. Might not be completely free but could be as good as. The amateur get together's mentioned in previous replies are good sources too. I have found great junk in some.Regards

I find most of my junk on the shelves behind me