Around 3:30 p.m. on Monday, an off-duty Boulder County sheriff’s deputy was just finishing his post overseeing the eviction of JB Saunders Company from its 4,000-square-foot storefront on Sterling Circle in Boulder.

By 3:45, the scrappers were there, digging through three large construction dumpsters that had been filled with thousands of dollars worth of metal, computer parts and electronics.

Nothing much good was left by 3 p.m. on Tuesday, when Brighton-based Kelly’s Rolloff Services hauled the containers away to the Boulder County Recycling Center, but a worker for the landlord had to chase a handful of people away from the last dumpster, still searching for gold.

The longtime electronic parts supply company was forcibly removed for failure to pay more than $13,730 in back rent to property owner Neico Investments LLC. Payments stopped in September, according to court filings, and a judgement against JB Saunders was handed down January 27.

JB Saunders’ owner, Tammy Schreiner-Johnson, did not respond to a request for comment.

JB Saunders had been in business in Boulder since 1976, drawing a small but devoted following of do-it-yourselfers. Several people drove, walked and biked to the shop Monday and Tuesday, looking for odd little parts that only JB Saunders carried and instead finding the doors closed and about half the store’s interior sitting outside on the curb.

Ellen Cohig, co-owner of Vacuum Tube Supply in Denver, remembers going to JB Saunders in college, sometime in the early ’80s, and said it was sad to see the place go. Still, she admits, business can be tough for electronic suppliers — the product is cheap, the customer base small and shrinking as buyers move online.

Cohig and her husband, Peter, have made their business successful by focusing on valuable vacuum tubes that are common in audio equipment. The stuff at JB Saunders was very niche, she said, and it was often the only place along the Front Range with a particular item.

“If customers came in looking for something that we didn’t have, I would always say, ‘Go to JB Saunders,'” she said. “There was a lot of really wonderful stuff there, really valuable electronics.”

The inventory remains the property of JB Saunders’ owners, who had 24 hours to haul it away. But about half the goods went to eager scrappers, who showed up before the dust had settled.

Pam Wilson and Phil Brunemeier drove down from Denver on a tip from a fellow scrapper, known as Casper. They loaded up their purple Pontiac with everything it could fit: copper wiring, circuit boards, scrap metal.

The haul was definitely worth the trek to Boulder, Brunemeir said, noting the quality and valuable nature of electronics.

Plus, Wilson added, “it’s better than this going to the landfill. Upcycling or picking — whatever you want to call it — it’s saving stuff that’s getting thrown away.”

Shay Castle: 303-473-1626, castles@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/shayshinecastle