Trivia from a year-1900 Sears Catalog

[C. in Indy]

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.

[hbmcc]

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?

[C. in Indy]

hbmcc said:

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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?

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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.

[Axehandle]

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.

[Boatman53]

There are a couple of those Sears houses here in Sag Harbor, worth quite a bit more today.
Jim

[Herb G]

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.

[oarlock]

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.

[Bibliophile 13]

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.

[Timberwolf]

Quote:

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- 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.

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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!!!!