Written by Christopher on Tuesday, January 04, 2022.
Hello everyone!
Since the new year (2022) just started fresh, we thought that today we take a step back in time! More than 20 years!
Back to 2001 when Vetco Electronics was located inside of the Bellevue Fred Meyer!
Back then, our address was "2041 148th Ave NE Bellevue Washington 98007".
Now, we have been in our current location at 12718 for well over 10 years now, likely closer to 16 or 17 years. But its hard to put it down to an exact date.
Vetco Electronics was founded in 1989 by Warren Mcpherson, who's father started Radar Electric. And our very first address, back in 1989 was "13029 NORTHUP WAY BELLEVUE WA 98005". But I was less than three months old then, so I never saw it! :)
Either way, have a scroll through our photos we found (and scanned in) of the old store! Its pretty cool seeing the old Vetco logo and what the old store looked like. The wayback machine has even captured what our website looked like in 2001! We have a picture of that at the bottom of all the other photos. I will try my best to identify any product that you can see in the photos, that is still made, and still carried. I will put links with each photo so you can see them!
This first photo (below) is the entrance to the store. You can see our old logo on the door. And a sign saying that you shouldn't bring Fred Meyer carts into our store. An unknown woman wearing a blue denim jacket (hopefully she boiled that denim) is entering the store.
In this next image (below), you can see an unknown person browsing our selection. You can also see a LARGE red server rack to the left. Interesting to note, the signs telling you which aisle you are on, we still have and use on some of the aisles in our current store! Also, the product next to the mans hand are DC power supplies made by Philmore, which they still make and we still carry! You can see the product page and buy one HERE and in the background, you can see the Philmore AC step-up/step-down transformer boxes, that we still carry HERE
This image (below), shows another unknown aisle in our old store. You can see the blue Akro bins full of product. As well as other bins full of random surplus product. Funny note: the scale you can see in the right side of the photo on the shelf, we still have and use it for shipping packages out! There isn't really any product that I can clearly identify in this photo.
This image (below), shows some new and surplus cat5 punch down panels. I actually have one of the old ORTRONICS panels at my house! We still sell punch down panels HERE Its difficult to identify any other products or cool things in this image.
This image (below), shows the LARGE selection of cables we had at that Fred Meyer Vetco store. Many of the cables you can see are serial, some USB and other types mixed in. We still carry LOTS of USB cables, and some DB15 cables. But serial cables have largely died out since 2001, so our selection of DB25 and such type cables has gotten smaller.
This image (below), shows a great selection of surplus items at the old Vetco store. You see a LOT of older analog oscilloscopes (much more common in 2001) and other random surplus. We still carry surplus items and our entire aisle 7 at our current store is dedicated to surplus. Though there are other awesome surplus items for sale around our store. We do our best to list surplus items on our website HERE and on our ebay store HERE, but there is never enough time to get it all, or even half of it on the website or ebay. So you will ALWAYS have the best selection of surplus by coming and shopping in our retail store!
This image (below), is the last one we have recovered from the old photo album. It shows another aisle in the old store. You can see many more blue Akro bins containing audio cables and other cables like RG6.
You can view a LOT more photos in our Dropbox by CLICKING HERE
This image (below), is our old website from 2001. It looks WAY different from our current one! Its amazing what time changes!
We at Vetco Electronics would like to thank you for taking a trip back in time with us, in this post. We were happy we came across this old photo album in our old files and could share it with you!
We also would like to thank all of our customers who have been shopping with since 1989! We hope to have many, many more years of service to our customers! We are always expanding and adding new products. Almost daily. Come by and check out our store here in Bellevue. Or shop online on our website, or check out our Amazon, Walmart and Ebay store!
Happy New Year 2022 to everyone!
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