The aisles are stocked with surplus electronics, art supplies, military surplus, laboratory wares, home goods, and all kinds of random objects like weird shaped plastic blobs, dentistry tools, beer glasses engraved with someone else's name, JFK beach towels, super-strong magnets, and googly eyes. The store is decorated with giant telephones, missiles, stop signs, disco balls, an iron lung, 1930s television camera, and mutant baby doll/robot hybrids.
They also reliably stock electronics like switches, motors and wire, and project items like duct tape, beads, marbles and nails.
The merchandise is still tagged with a pricing gun, and the signs describing what the products are, are worth a visit to the store by themselves. Ironic, subversive and very funny miniature artworks and collages describe what many of the products are, or just agree that they don't know what that bin of wotsits are for either, but suggest that you really should buy some.
There's plenty of items for under a dollar, you can fill your trunk for $20 and have art projects, Halloween costumes, electronic projects, and be able to make bizarre home decor whether your taste runs to the kitsch, macabre or somewhere in-between.
If you buy 12 of any item, the 13th one is free. It's just a shame they don't have 13 iron lungs, but it stretches your dollar even further if you are picking up a large quantity of baby doll limbs or vintage microfilm viewers, originally from St. Paul libraries.
As well as the St. Paul store, Ax Man has locations in St. Louis Park and Fridley too.
