Here! Enjoy seven minutes’ worth of toys in the Sears-Roebuck 1960 Christmas catalog.
Oh, did I love those catalogs! I know it’s not quite what Christmas is about, and you can go too far–(Are you kidding? You can go way too far!) but come on, let’s get real: who doesn’t like to receive presents? Some of us like to give them, too.
I loved the “play sets” with mobs of little plastic figurines. Can I remember all the play sets that I had? Circus (I was, I think, five years old). Farm. Dinosaurs and Cavemen. African Safari. Cape Canaveral. Military Base (with spring-powered missiles!). The kid down the block had the Ben Hur set.
And then there were all the different construction sets with which you could design and build your own architectural fantasies. There was just no end to it. Sitting on the couch in the sitting room, watching the snow come down, and thumbing through the toys section in the catalog–was there ever a more pleasant way to spend a winter’s day?
Alas, there is no more Sears-Roebuck & Co., no more Sears Christmas Catalog.
Just memories.
[P.S.–That’s Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring in the background.]
I grew up in a Sears family. Many family members, including myself, have been Sears employees and during my youth, my mother had a good job at Sears which contributed well to the family income, gave us 10% off of anything at Sears, and availed us to any number of employee-only bargains which made some great products quite affordable, for Sears workers.
Sears was much more than retail stores. It was a distribution system which allowed products to be shipped between stores as needed. They also sold service for appliances and even had their own laundry detergent. Being part of a Sears family carried with it an element of community, including congregating at the in-store restaurant for a coffee break. Target or Walmart can offer nothing of the sort, in our day.
Because of my mother’s position, we were on a first name basis with the guys in the Automotive Center and they kept the family jalopies on the road. This was invaluable to a family of modest means, who could barely afford a car and definitely could not afford to be scammed by a shady repair shop.
Sears was started by a railroad agent in Spring Valley, Minnesota, Richard Sears, who sold some distressed freight watches by mail order. t its heart, Sears was first and foremost about distribution of products, and finding a way to fulfill mail orders. While it’s often forgotten, these days, Sears stores had a catalog department where customers could pick up orders. The “last mile” of the delivery chain was thereby eliminated and by using their own fleet of trucks creatively, they could solve logistical problems rapidly.
As with many brick and mortar retail establishments, their ultimate enemy was not their peer competitors, but package delivery services, such as UPS and FedEx. It breaks my heart to see this, but we live in a world where almost anything that can be delivered via package service is increasingly being sold that way.
The Wish Book that Sears published, and very freely distributed every holiday season was a high point in my year. I was somewhat known to virtually every coworker of my mother’s and could easily hornswoggle a second copy of the Wish Book, so I could memorize the contents I found interesting. Elaborate play sets and other interesting items, such as cameras my family could never have afforded.
As I matured, my interests changed and when I started caring about looking sharp the Sears and Penney’s catalog was a good way to inform myself about fashions. There is a legend, of sorts about an employer in a third world country whose employees all resigned once their needs were met, so they arranged to have Sears catalogs mailed to all of them, and they dutifully returned to work the next Monday. 🙂
The Wish Book stayed in a magazine rack in our living room well beyond the holiday season. I would venture that if I got my hands on a mid ‘60s Wish Book, much of it would be familiar, to this very day.
I’ll be there’s a way to buy an old Sears catalog. Wouldn’t that be wonderful!
There are Wish Books on eBay. The ones from the ‘60s seem to be going for about $250.
Oh, those wonderful non-Barbie dolls! And the doll houses! And the work stations and the play sets and construction toys! And the trucks and the trains! Kids today don’t know what they’re missing.
We had a Sears store five minutes from our house. It was a shock when it closed. We bought all our appliances from them. What was a stroll through the mall without checking out what was new at Sears. As a child I loved the Lincoln Logs and the rubber GI-Joe figurines.