Did you ever shop from the Sears catalog?

[mia]

In the 60s I lived in rural NJ, between Ringoes and Lambertville. Our mailman was the mayor of Ringoes. I looked forward to seeing him and receiving packages from the Sears catalog. Enjoy the movie.

[Arkansas Granny]

1. I haven't personally shopped from a Sears catalog, but my parents did when I was growing up.

I can remember looking through the pages when I was young and seeing all those beautiful, new clothes that we could never afford to buy.

Those catalogs made great booster seats for toddlers to sit at the dinner table.

[mia]

4. Sears booster seats. Love it!

Fond memories of my little brothers.

[Binkie The Clown]

2. Back in the 1950s the Sears catalog was our Amazon.com.

I used to spend hours browsing through it and ordering things I needed.

[Boxerfan]

3. Did you ever save up stamps in a book

Then stand in line to trade them in for (in my case) a model airplane?. I did

[mia]

7. Yes! S&H Green stamps. I traded them for a spice rack.

It graced my kitchens for 30+ years. The herbs and spices became old and moldy, probably poisonous. I cleaned out the bottles and sold the whole set at a yard sale in 2005. I remember the day.

[House of Roberts]

5. I used to shop from the Sears Craftsman Tool Catalog.

But I always had a local Sears store to buy it in person. We also had a Sears Surplus store which carried a lot of extra stuff at discounted prices, and it was on my end of town and really accessible.

[Harker]

6. Yes.

My father worked at the Sears headquarters in Chicago from 1950 to 1968, following his father's career there..

The catalog was a big presence in my childhood.

Thanks for posting this. I'll watch it soon.

[mia]

15. I remember the view from the top of the Sears Tower.

Enjoyed visiting Chicago.

[Harker]

26. As big cities go, Chicago has a lot to offer...

and I never imagined what would become of Sears.

[underpants]

8. We used to get to circle our Christmas wishlist and fold over the pages.

How my mom managed I will never know.

[underpants]

9. Sears catalogs were a big deal in the outhouse days

My stepfather told me the Sears catalog was a big improvement over corn cobs.

[mia]

11. And the pages kept

your underpants clean.

[underpants]

12. The irony

If you used the underpants Section and then needed new ones.

[ironflange]

19. In Canada it was the Eaton's Catalogue

My mom used to say that they knew when a new catalogue was going to arrive when there were only the shiny pages left.

[ProfessorGAC]

10. Don't Know We Did

My parents may have.
But, I know for sure that it was used as a reference guide.
The city where I grew up had a big Sears store (3 floors) so they had nearly everything in the catalog.
I remember my parents & me personally, looking through it to get an idea of what we were going there to buy.
The drop of the catalog really annoys me.
Sears had a "sight unseen" clientele for decades & decades, they owned an early internet access platform, & they had a separate division for finance. They should have been Amazon before Amazon ever got off the ground.
But, they had a coterie of the dumbest, least competent executives in US business history.
They could have been a 10,000 HP rocket car, but they became a jalopy driven into a ditch.

[mia]

16. So true about what they could have been.

I'll miss Sears. My local store is still open.

[ProfessorGAC]

22. None Near Us

And, we live 65 miles from their world headquarters.
They couldn't even maintain a presence all over Chicagoland.

[LeftInTX]

13. No. We "window shopped" via the catalog and then purchased what we wanted in the store.

Everything we wanted was stocked in the store.

[PXR-5]

14. Yes!

I would pick out my toys for Santa to bring me in the 60s, through the early 90s for stuff for my home.

I still have my Sears Card.

Somewhere around here I have my father in law's Metal Sears card from the 30s or 40s and my mother in law's football shaped one from the 50s.

Still have Kenmore appliances in the kitchen.

[SheltieLover]

17. I recall it was a big deal when the catalog would arrive!

Not sure if parents ever shopped from it, other than for ideas as we had a large Sears store in the town I grew up on.

Can you imagine kids these days being so bored as to be excited to receive junk mail?

[gibraltar72]

18. My wife was both Montgomery Wards

and Sears catalog manager. At separate times of course.

[sinkingfeeling]

20. Yes, up until they stopped the catalog.

[rsdsharp]

21. The small town I grew up in had a J.C. Penney's and a Montgomery Wards,

but we only had a Sears catalog store. The front door opened into a fairly large room that had some merchandise on display, but it wasn’t for sale. You walked through the room to the back counter where you could place, or pick up, your catalog order. If we wanted to actually shop in a Sears store, we had to drive 30 miles.

We got (and used) the spring and fall catalogs every year, and the arrival of the Wish Book somewhere around Halloween was a big event annually during my childhood.

Sears was responsible for putting one of my favorite radio stations on the air in 1924 — WLS (World’s Largest Store). The only owned it for a couple of years before selling it to Prairie Farmer Magazine (which in turn sold it to ABC in 1960 which made it a major Top 40 station), but Sears started it.

Sears was Amazon before there was an Amazon, and could have continued to be if not for short sighted management. It’s very sad. They sold quality merchandise at fair prices and stood behind it. I miss it.

[questionseverything]

23. That was a really informative & entertaining movie 🎥 ty

[mia]

24. Yes!

You're welcome. So many historic photos. I loved it.

[Midnight Writer]

25. I just read it for the underwear pictures.

[Skittles]

27. my mum did, when I was a kid and when we were in America

[Chainfire]

28. Yep, the new Sears catalog was an event.

Growing up in rural America in the 50s and 60s the Sears catalog was a part of our lives. I used to drool over the toy section. I still want that Visible V-8 Engine; it is where my baseball glove and Erector Set came from....If you go back a generation or maybe two, there are houses, in a town near me, that were bought as kit houses from the Sears catalog, delivered in a rail car and assembled by local craftsmen. Everything was included right down to the doorbell. They were nice houses too! One of them is now a local B&B.