+- Woodnet Forums (https://forums.woodnet.net)
+-- Thread: Trivia from a year-1900 Sears Catalog (/showthread.php?tid=7270890)
Trivia from a year-1900 Sears Catalog - C. in Indy - 04-23-2016
I hit a couple of garage sales on Friday. No tools that I wanted (other than some sawhorses), but I did pick up a reproduction of a Sears catalog from 1900. It's a pretty dense little book!
Just some points to share:
- One of the "5 Buildings... supplying ... every State and Territory" had its address on Fulton Street. Perhaps the inspiration for the Fulton-brand tools?
- Tool chests were shipped containing both genuine Stanley and Disston tools. Plane kits would for example have Wooden Smooth/Jack/Fore planes, plus one Iron block plane. Disston individual offerings included the No. 7, No. 12, No. D8, and No. 120.
- The whole catalog shamelessly says "Sears, Roebuck and Co., Inc. CHEAPEST SUPPLY HOUSE on Earth." Sort of the Wal-Mart of its day?
- Despite offering Disston saws, the saw page's flagship saw is a Sears brand, which they said was made by a fine manufacturer. The picture looks a lot like this warranted-superior saw that I picked up in January:
- Right between the Veterinary products pages and the human health products pages is a set of Electric Belts.... in Alternating Current ... to solve problems the doctors can't solve... headaches, liver problems, etc.
Re: Trivia from a year-1900 Sears Catalog - hbmcc - 04-23-2016
I always had fun reading those old catalogs. Sears was famous as an outhouse read-and-use.... An uncle in Alberta had Monkey' Wards.
Did they sell houses in that one?
Re: Trivia from a year-1900 Sears Catalog - C. in Indy - 04-23-2016
hbmcc said:
I always had fun reading those old catalogs. Sears was famous as an outhouse read-and-use.... An uncle in Alberta had Monkey' Wards.
Did they sell houses in that one?
I was hoping to find houses in this catalog, but I didn't (yet). Anyway, the legacy of Sears houses (1920s vicinity?) is pretty strong in Indianapolis. I recall walking through one during a tour-of-historic-homes about 10 years ago, and being pretty impressed with the tidy place.
Re: Trivia from a year-1900 Sears Catalog - Axehandle - 04-29-2016
My aunt and uncle live in a Sears house. They restored it a bit back and stripped and refinished the 8" tall Walnut trim boards.
I was impressed by this house you could buy from a catalog.
Re: Trivia from a year-1900 Sears Catalog - Boatman53 - 04-29-2016
There are a couple of those Sears houses here in Sag Harbor, worth quite a bit more today.
Jim
Re: Trivia from a year-1900 Sears Catalog - oarlock - 04-30-2016
My parents lived in a four-square Sears house for nearly forty years. They remodled the kitchen when I was in 6th grade. Quite surprised to see sequence numbers on the studs when the plaster was off. They later found a picture of the original owner (in 1907) standing on top of a horse-drawn freight wagon with the bones of the house on board.
Re: Trivia from a year-1900 Sears Catalog - Bibliophile 13 - 05-02-2016
I remember reading that 1900 reprint when I was a kid and being amazed at what you could get mail-order back then. (It also made sense of the "Wells Fargo Wagon" song in The Music Man, but I digress.) Firearms, windmills, sheds.... you name it.
More like the Amazon of its day.
Re: Trivia from a year-1900 Sears Catalog - Herb G - 05-02-2016
The house I live in right now was a Sears home.
I did some renovation work on it & found all kinds of weird markings on the lumber.
I looked it up & here it is a Sears home.
Best I can tell, it was originally built in the early 1930's.
Re: Trivia from a year-1900 Sears Catalog - Timberwolf - 05-02-2016
Quote:
- Right between the Veterinary products pages and the human health products pages is a set of Electric Belts.... in Alternating Current ... to solve problems the doctors can't solve... headaches, liver problems, etc.
Hmmm...Think I'll contact Sears, Roebuck and see if they have any of those things that have fallen behind the stockroom shelves...I'd be willing to give them a go!!!!!
Maybe I could throw away my copper bracelet!!!!
