Sears Was the Amazon.com of the 20th Century-- Part 2: Those Christmas Wish Books

Sears dubbed its 1933 Christmas catalog a "Wish Book" and extended the basic catalog to 700 pages.  President Roosevelt reportedly said he'd like to give every Soviet citizen a Sears catalog as it was an encyclopedia of the American Dream.

I can sure remember going through the Sears and Montgomery Ward's Christmas catalogs and salivating over the toys.  Especially any of the toy soldier sets, especially he Blue and the Gray, Alamo and Fort Apache ones.

Sears role today is fast fading.  Sales are plummeting, stores are closing and there is a serious doubt that it can continue.  Today's flourishing internet business (Amazon and others) is a 21st century update on sears' 20th century mail-order model.

On the West Side of Chicago at huge Homan Avenue complex, the end came on March 2, 1987, on the workers' lunch break when 1,800 employees were told that the distribution center was closing because the facility was "worn out."

They might as well pull the plug and let Lambert make his billions off the bones of the once-great Sears.

So Sad.  --Cooter

My "Hot" Toys-- Part 2: Airfix HO Soldiers

But even better than the Blue & Gray soldiers were the much smaller, and much less expensive Airfix HO Scale Civil War soldiers which I discovered when we moved to Rolling Meadows, Illinois, in 1963.  When you only get 50 cents a week allowance, this was huge.

The Airfix HO scale soldiers were to go with the HO scale model trains.

They were at the local Ace Hardware right down Kirchoff Road and cost 49 cents for 48 soldiers.  You had to pull them off the plastic runners and file down the stub so they would stand upright correctly.  Now I could make a huge army to fight my wars.

I mostly bought the Union and Confederate soldiers, but they also had soldiers from most wars.  During warmer days, we would go out collecting empty bottles from the neighborhood and we got 2 cents apiece for them.  Get a case and you had another 48 soldiers.  We collected a lot of bottles to say the least.

Recruiting Was Good.  --Cooter