Catalogs

[Guest]

When I was growing up catalogs were great!

Sears Roebuck, and Montgomery Wards were staples in the home.  As a kid I looked at , circled, and wished for  toys, tools, knives , guns , and bicycles.

Moms looked at clothes for kids and lost our bookmarks...

Men all turned down pages for tools, tractor parts, knives, guns...being a boy I liked to see what the older men had bookmarked.

Learning to read was fun. Reading about fun guy stuff, not this stupid "See Spot run...".

Catalogs were what you sat on when the table was a wee bit too high - still. Big day when you did not have to sit on two anymore, really a big day when you didn't need a catalog to sit on anymore at all.

Sears and Wards - sniff...sniff...I miss them.

LLBean was another I latched onto as a kid. Still one I will keep, actually order from.
There are few others - still okay in my opinion...still some "must haves" - like Brownells...

I tossed a box of catalogs today. I received the Cabela's, Granger Mountain, and Bass Pro Shop - these were the new ones, someone had received two each. I perused, felt ill and tossed them in the box.

Mom had received some catalogs, well she too noticed nothing really exciting, for sure my 75 y/o mom is not going to order low waist jeans to show off her thong...

I also tossed some magazines given to me. Flipping thru, same garbage, not worth my time. I care not one whit about Camo this, tactcal that, or new beancounter/lawyerized/politically correct  gun made from crap parts.

Online catalogs?

I really believe the same folks that do the cheesy paper catalogs - figured out how to use a computer.

[onions!]

I thought that you (ahem;) ) older folks had a different,perhaps more practical,use for those big catalogs?

BTW,I remember spending hours on the floor reading the Sears catalog while watching cartoons before Christmas.

[Standing Wolf]

Nearly everything I wear was ordered from catalogues. Most of the stuff in the cardboard boxes in my gun closet was ordered from catalogues. I just received my new Brownell's catalogue this afternoon, and will order a couple hundred dollars' worth of goodies early this coming week. My watch came from a catalogue. My computer came from a catalogue. My bed and bedding and towels came from catalogues. My soap and after-shave lotions are from a catalogue.

I've worked for a couple catalogue operations, including one that had no competition, yet still managed to fail in the market.

Actually, now that I stop to think about it, I wonder why there's no such thing as a catalogue of girl friends.

[Ben]

BTW,I remember spending hours on the floor reading the Sears catalog while watching cartoons before Christmas.

I used to do the exact same thing! Great memory....

[Guest]

Standing Wolf -

I too use catalogs.

I guess what I did a poor job of expressing is:

Never really been a shopper.
Having dealt with the public in Retail and Wholesale.... Last thing I wanted to do was 'shop'.
I was more  appreciative of competent sales persons and customer service. I cannot tolerate poor excuses for salesperson's, poor service.

Then quality of goods and services went downhill.

I went to catalogs, hardcopy and online even more. At least the estabished catalogs had quality merchandise and customer service.

Now it seems these catalogs are going the way of brick and mortar.

Sigh...

I don't own a TV.  The rare times I am around one - more commercials than programs - granted the programs are not worth watching.

Radio - of late I am getting really sick and tired of the 'hawking' of car dealers. These always have that irritating voice - then this 'voice' - bad enough as is - is yelling.

Internet catalogs are getting pretty filled up with junk too.

Scary part - someday this will be the 'good old days'.

Getting more and more difficult to sort quality goods and services anymore; from any medium it seems.

[Justin]

I remember spending hours on the floor reading the Sears catalog while watching cartoons before Christmas.

Ditto!

[brimic]

My grandfather had what i guess could be called an 'Ottoman' for a lack of better words that was stuffed full of catalogs. I used to sit on his lap and he'd go through the tool/woodworking catalogs with me. I guess I knew the names of all of the tools better than most adults before I could even read.
The Sears Christmas catalog was always something I looked forward to.

[Stickjockey]

Ah yes, the Sears Christmas Wishbook. Those were the days.

[Preacherman]

The painful thing is to go through really old catalogues, and see what was available, at what sort of prices, a hundred years ago or more.  I was recently shown a facsimile edition of the 1900 Sears catalogue...  Winchester .30-30's for about twelve bucks, Colt New Frontier .45's for $7...  AAAARRRGH!

[Stickjockey]

Yeah, but you also have to remember that $12.00 was a week or two's wages back then. Still...