Levy Auto Parts

[BCA]

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.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

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

[Andrew Rowe]

Surprisingly, several years ago I was cataloguing several thousand NOS M41 Parts I have, and Levy's name cropped up quite a bit on the packaging, all down here in little old NZ. Pretty sure these parts had been sourced by the US for the NZ Army, back in the 60's, as we ran about 10 of them at the time , Cheers Andrew.

[Bob Phillips]

Hi Andrew, two interesting tidbits relating to M41 spares. I remember that one of the hulks in the yard at Levys was an M8A1 tractor which was a cargo hauler based on the M41 driveline. I was told that a large number were purchased as surplus from the US got and stripped for parts ultimately to supply M41 spares. Coincidentally I was inthe Napco yard back in the day and they also had a similar junker.
One of the reasons for the demise of of Levy was that they were caught running used suspension arms through their extensive workshops and supplying them to the US govt as new. A sharp eyed US inspector noticed a stamping mark on the "new" parts that was actually stamped on used parts sold for scrapping. The resulting charges and recall of a major loan shut the company down.
I never did learn what application the bogus parts were for, perhaps they were M41?

[David Dunlop]

I wonder if Levy’s had a ‘Wholesale’ side to their operations? I can recall finding 19-Set Junction and Distribution Boxes, as well as 12-Pin Wire Loomed Connector Cables of various lengths in several local surplus shops in the early 1980’s. All were packed in heavy duty clear plastic pouches with a white ID Label inside from Levy’s, giving an Inspection and Repacked Date between the late 1950’s and early 1970’s.

The clear plastic pouches always seemed at odds with the more typical reuse of original cardboard and stapled boxes one saw with repack labels glued over the original ID labels.

David