We use the Grainger catalog at work. Also Fisher and Carolina science catalogs. But yeah that Grainger catalog is something. Fastenal is another big one.
How did people use pre-Internet catalogs?
- Thread starter pangaea
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We use the Grainger catalog at work. Also Fisher and Carolina science catalogs. But yeah that Grainger catalog is something. Fastenal is another big one.
Heck, catalogs themselves have been obsoleted for the most part.
I have these reference books, little manuals which list compressor info, run and start cap requirements, relay part number, etc. Very useful when working on an AC that you suspect the cap is bad but the ink info on it is unreadable. Or following up behind another tech who replaced said cap and you want to verify it's the right rating.
Many years ago I had a warehouse manager (he's still there, just talked to him about this!) scrounge me up a copy of the older books (say 1965 through 1980). I had the pair of books for 1980 through 1995 or so. Asked him about getting me the latest ones - he said they don't print catalogs anymore, you have to go on-line to get the info. Since I don't do Iphone, I guess I'm out of luck.
Though he gave me his last hard copy of the final year they did printed manuals (2011). Personal connections still help! lol
I have these reference books, little manuals which list compressor info, run and start cap requirements, relay part number, etc. Very useful when working on an AC that you suspect the cap is bad but the ink info on it is unreadable. Or following up behind another tech who replaced said cap and you want to verify it's the right rating.
Many years ago I had a warehouse manager (he's still there, just talked to him about this!) scrounge me up a copy of the older books (say 1965 through 1980). I had the pair of books for 1980 through 1995 or so. Asked him about getting me the latest ones - he said they don't print catalogs anymore, you have to go on-line to get the info. Since I don't do Iphone, I guess I'm out of luck.
Though he gave me his last hard copy of the final year they did printed manuals (2011). Personal connections still help! lol
My earliest memory of mail ordering was in the 1950's when my mom ordered me a Winky Dink and You Magic Kit. It was piece of plastic you put over your 9-12" B&W TV screen with several crayons to draw bridges & other stuff on your tv to help Winky Dink.
I still have a 45 rpm record catalog from the House of Oldies on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village from the mid-1960's. It lists over 4,000 oldies you could order for $1 per record. Shipping per order was $.25 per order. Payment was check or money order. I still use it as reference as it also lists the artist.
In the mid-1970's I would get bootleg record catalogs. I still have some Dylan bootleg albums I ordered by mail with a check, usually about $3-5 per album.
In the 1980's my wife was big on ordering from JC Penney and Sears catalogs. The initial catalog could be picked up at their stores and once you ordered you kept getting catalogs in the mail. By then stores had their own credit cards for payment.
Also in the 1980's and maybe early 90's, there were catalog stores like Service Merchandise where you got a catalog in the mail but had to go to the store, fill out a form, pay and your item would come up from the basement on conveyor belt. Most items were not on display in the store.
In 1993, I bought the $5 shareware of DOOM at the computer store, but then had to use mail order to get the full game. Stores didn't carry the full game.
I still have a 45 rpm record catalog from the House of Oldies on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village from the mid-1960's. It lists over 4,000 oldies you could order for $1 per record. Shipping per order was $.25 per order. Payment was check or money order. I still use it as reference as it also lists the artist.
In the mid-1970's I would get bootleg record catalogs. I still have some Dylan bootleg albums I ordered by mail with a check, usually about $3-5 per album.
In the 1980's my wife was big on ordering from JC Penney and Sears catalogs. The initial catalog could be picked up at their stores and once you ordered you kept getting catalogs in the mail. By then stores had their own credit cards for payment.
Also in the 1980's and maybe early 90's, there were catalog stores like Service Merchandise where you got a catalog in the mail but had to go to the store, fill out a form, pay and your item would come up from the basement on conveyor belt. Most items were not on display in the store.
In 1993, I bought the $5 shareware of DOOM at the computer store, but then had to use mail order to get the full game. Stores didn't carry the full game.
This made me think of the story "The Hockey Sweater" by Roch Carrier. Here is a good summary from Wikepedia:
His old sweater having worn out, Carrier's mother seeks to replace it. She writes a letter to Eaton's in French to order a new sweater from their English-only catalogue. When the package arrives, the young Carrier is horrified to discover the sweater of the rival Toronto Maple Leafs was sent by mistake.He argues with his mother, who refuses to return the sweater for fear of offending "Monsieur Eaton", an English-speaking fan of Toronto.
Usually, you would get one in the mail when you would buy something from them. Some of them just got shipped to your door though. I remember as a kid, looking forward every year to getting the Christmas catalog in the mail.
Great story, from the "Original Six" era.
Oh . . . In later years they officially called it "The Wish Book", to be more inclusive, I suppose.
All that toy porn.
I just remembered that you could buy money orders at the Post Office to send along with the order form.
I have gotten one of those since the '70s.
Personal checks would work too, but you'd have to wait for them to clear.
Their first catalogs in the early years were the most beautiful catalogs I had ever seen. All the product photos were so carefully composed and lit, like a Vogue or Playboy.
"I just gotta have a set of polished brass finger planes, just to line them up and look at them."
Their Hardware catalogs (vintage and new hardware for cabinetmaking etc.) were equally gorgeous.
Sadly, their catalog photography has gone a bit downhill in the last decade or two.
We had stacks of them in our outhouse. Once you wadded up a page and wrinkled it good it worked adequately!
Wadding was insufficient preparation. To soften the paper and to make it less slick, you took two sheets and rubbed them vigorously together.
Sears and Roebuck were based in Chicago, a railroad hub. Much merchandise was shipped by rail, then broken down for delivery by the town/city post office on arrival. The amount of merchandise sold via the catalog was amazing. Sears sold house kits beginning in the early 1900s.
J. Peterman.
Best catalog ever!
Best catalog ever!
Guy who started S & H Green Stamps owned a mansion in Ypsilanti, MI. In the 70s High Scope Education Foundation was housed there....
I never rubbed 2 sheets together but always wadded, wrinkled, and with a bit of page in each hand I rub one side of the page against the other.
And don’t forget to light a match!
Man were those the days.
We didn’t even know we were poor
I’m on the Lee Valley mailing list and still receive the quarterly catalogue. Great reading.
Back in the 60’s and 70’s Mom and Dad collected Mark Ten cigarette coupons...collect enough and redeem them for nifty stuff like a pup tent and charcoal barbecue. Which Mom and Dad did. The pup tent came in handy when idiot cousins came over for the weekend and us morons crammed into it to spend the night. The barbecue was a good old fashion kettle type which lasted a good long time. Not as long as Mom and Dad, but their Mark Ten consumption contributed somewhat to their deaths from cancer many decades later.
I don’t know if it was available in all of Canada, but for a brief shining moment in the 70’s and 80’s we in Ontario shopped at Consumer’s Distributing. Not exactly a mail-order outfit, but you went to Consumer’s, where there were banks upon banks of counters each with catalogues, order forms and little pencils. You found the item in the catalogue you wanted, filled out the form and took it to the receiving counter. Within minutes the item ordered showed up at the counter and off you went. When we were first married my wife and I furnished much of our new home with Consumer’s stuff. The whole fill out a form and wait in line for it was borrowed from the Ontario government’s strict control over buying beer and hard liquor...an annoyance IKEA has embraced whole heartedly!
Here’s one from way down memory lane...on baseball trips to the U.S., for free crap like Chevrolet giveaways they’d want a continental U.S. address to pester me with flyers and stuff. I’d write out some outlandish address in California with the zip code 90210...seemed legit, right? Our last baseball trip took us to California and the 90210 scam probably wasn’t going to fly. Think, Porgy, think...
Aha, how about Chicago 60609? Remember all those Spiegel Catalogue references on practically every game show? Bloody brilliant! And it worked everytime...of course the poor sods stuck manning the Chevrolet/T-Mobile/Coors Light freebie booths probably didn’t give a rolling donut what address I gave...”Here’s yer free t-shirt..now go away”.
Back in the 60’s and 70’s Mom and Dad collected Mark Ten cigarette coupons...collect enough and redeem them for nifty stuff like a pup tent and charcoal barbecue. Which Mom and Dad did. The pup tent came in handy when idiot cousins came over for the weekend and us morons crammed into it to spend the night. The barbecue was a good old fashion kettle type which lasted a good long time. Not as long as Mom and Dad, but their Mark Ten consumption contributed somewhat to their deaths from cancer many decades later.
I don’t know if it was available in all of Canada, but for a brief shining moment in the 70’s and 80’s we in Ontario shopped at Consumer’s Distributing. Not exactly a mail-order outfit, but you went to Consumer’s, where there were banks upon banks of counters each with catalogues, order forms and little pencils. You found the item in the catalogue you wanted, filled out the form and took it to the receiving counter. Within minutes the item ordered showed up at the counter and off you went. When we were first married my wife and I furnished much of our new home with Consumer’s stuff. The whole fill out a form and wait in line for it was borrowed from the Ontario government’s strict control over buying beer and hard liquor...an annoyance IKEA has embraced whole heartedly!
Here’s one from way down memory lane...on baseball trips to the U.S., for free crap like Chevrolet giveaways they’d want a continental U.S. address to pester me with flyers and stuff. I’d write out some outlandish address in California with the zip code 90210...seemed legit, right? Our last baseball trip took us to California and the 90210 scam probably wasn’t going to fly. Think, Porgy, think...
Aha, how about Chicago 60609? Remember all those Spiegel Catalogue references on practically every game show? Bloody brilliant! And it worked everytime...of course the poor sods stuck manning the Chevrolet/T-Mobile/Coors Light freebie booths probably didn’t give a rolling donut what address I gave...”Here’s yer free t-shirt..now go away”.
That and Montgomery Wards. Who doesn't remember coming home from school and seeing the Christmas catalogs, and immediately flopping down on the living room floor with your siblings, thumbing through and circling everything you wanted. Nice memories.
Don
OMGSeaMonkeys!
...but, yeah...
+1
And the toy section.Before the Internet and Match.com and other like sites you had a catalog for that.
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