Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The Old Mail Order Catalogs

I remember the catalogs very well! I purchased my first scuba gear from Sears, around 1966. I saved a long time for that treasure! Now days I look up what I want on line, then try to buy local when ever possible! I really like to look at and touch most things prior to buying! I still have a couple old Sears catalogs, can't seem to bring myself to throw it away! Didn't look at the undies much, my older sisters had a couple friends, that used me as their practice kissing and making out dummy!! Life was rough as a 14 year old!!

first one I saw, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I didn't know what half that crap was, but I wanted to find out!

Sycamore

have a collection of sears and roebuck catalogs, starting in 1901. you could buy complete houses through them. down to the last nail!
in my wife's old medicine cabinet she has montgomery wards and co. catalog and buyers guide's starting 1885. some cool stuff in them all.
when i was a kid we had a outhouse until i was 7. used many catalog pages. thought i had died and gone to heaven when our church got i indoor toilet instead of the two holers.
i always figured Gander Mountain shot themselves in the foot when they stopped the catalog. have never bought another thing from them since as there has never been a store where i lived.

As a boy I would also read the Herters catalog cover to cover.

A really interesting catalog - Dixie Gun Works. I read it like a book, cover to cover.

I spent some quality time with the Grizzly Industrial catalog a couple of weeks ago, wound up ordering a few items. Man, that catalog has grown since I first saw one.

I still have a couple of Herter's catalogs from around late 1960's, early 70's. My brother and I ordered a few things from them, mostly low priced stuff. I remember reading all that B.S about old George Herter. and how everything he did or sold was always the best. At one time I came within a hair of ordering a J9 Herter's rifle. Wish now I had.

Anyone remember the hubbub when it appeared that the winky of one of the male underwear models in the Sears catalog was poking out of his briefs?

Almost as scandalous as the revelation that the Ivory Snow girl was a porn actress.

Nowadays, of course, the winky might be showing in the Ladies' section, and you'd damn well better think it's just fine.

Just about a week ago I was looking through my 1958 Herters catalog, wishing I knew then what I know now.

Looking at all of the past tense verbs in responses, I would say the overwhelming consensus is no to the first phrase and yes to the second. Any catalogs I get nowadays go from the mailbox straight to the recycling bin since everything in them is online anyway. They used to be a great source of product information when they were the only source of that info, but those days are over.

You guys that got to use the catalogs in the outhouse sure were lucky. All we had were corncobs. A big bucket of red ones, and a smaller bucket of white ones. You only used the white ones to see if you needed to use another red one.

Laptops are not even a close 2nd in revealing one's social/economic standing within the community. I haven't read all 4 pages to see if this was mentioned, but no laptop can tell you what an outhouse tells you that has the current previous season's wishbook.

Sears also had a Willys Jeep specialty catalogue. I had a 1946 Willys CJ2A jeep and needed to rebuild it. What few parts I could not get from the Sears Jeep catalogue, I got from J.C. Whitney's catalogue.

L.W.

I still have a1964 Hodgon catalog with gun prices

I certainly remember these catalogs with great fondness. I sure bought a ton of stuff from Herters, especially since ALL their products were described as "world famous, the greatest, the finest, etc." I used my hard earned dollars form cutting grass and delivering papers to buy stocks, stock making supplies, reloading dies, hunting clothing, etc. Rarely did the product live up to its extreme hype. I've always wondered who the dishonest catalog writers were. I wonder if they ever felt regret or were they cut from the mold of Bernie Madoff.