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Sears Wishbooks from the fifties

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coldplugs

coldplugs

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I was looking through a book (<span style="font-weight: bold">Boys' Toys</span>, edited by Thomas Holland that contains reprints of pages from Sears Christmas catalogs (the "Wishbook") from 1950 through 1969. I'm sure many of the folks here remember them well.

Some of my favorites:

Guns, guns guns! Daisy, Crossman, and Sheriden air rifles and pistols.

"Keep the youngsters fit!" - Adult boxing equipment.

Darts! (With sharp points!)

Several gas stations (With toy air pumps, grease guns, and a sponge to wash cars).

The "Town Freight Trucking Terminal" (With claims office, cashiers window, "live skid", and 24 empty food cartons).

DeLuxe Chemistry Set – With <span style="font-style: italic">"Real uranium ore"</span> and a "radioactive screen". (1952, page 281)

A "Senior Microscope Outfit" also with "uranium ore" (why?)

A stream engine, electrically heated, with safety valve.

Hundreds of different cap pistols. (Remember caps?)

The "Flexy Racer". This was a sled, with wheels. The kid lays on it, head forward. (Guess what hits the tree first...)

A tool set, including a hack saw and coping saw with extra blades.

A "training rifle" with "live rubber bayonet for 'in-fights'".

It goes on and on...

By the sixties, most of these things were gone as safer, plasticky, more boring toys took over.

I can't believe we survived our toys. (Uranium ore? Probably not for real. They probably just used mercury in small vials and <span style="font-style: italic">claimed</span> it was uranium.)

[Up late tonight - have to make an airport run]
 
But kids who grew up with these toys learned how things worked and how to fix them. It served me well all my life.

Jim
 
coldplugs said:
I was looking through a book (<span style="font-weight: bold">Boys' Toys</span>, edited by Thomas Holland that contains reprints of pages from Sears Christmas catalogs (the "Wishbook") from 1950 through 1969. I'm sure many of the folks here remember them well.

Some of my favorites:

Guns, guns guns! Daisy, Crossman, and Sheriden air rifles and pistols.

"Keep the youngsters fit!" - Adult boxing equipment.

Darts! (With sharp points!)

Several gas stations (With toy air pumps, grease guns, and a sponge to wash cars).

The "Town Freight Trucking Terminal" (With claims office, cashiers window, "live skid", and 24 empty food cartons).

DeLuxe Chemistry Set – With <span style="font-style: italic">"Real uranium ore"</span> and a "radioactive screen". (1952, page 281)

A "Senior Microscope Outfit" also with "uranium ore" (why?)

A stream engine, electrically heated, with safety valve.

Hundreds of different cap pistols. (Remember caps?)

The "Flexy Racer". This was a sled, with wheels. The kid lays on it, head forward. (Guess what hits the tree first...)

A tool set, including a hack saw and coping saw with extra blades.

A "training rifle" with "live rubber bayonet for 'in-fights'".

It goes on and on...

By the sixties, most of these things were gone as safer, plasticky, more boring toys took over.

I can't believe we survived our toys. (Uranium ore? Probably not for real. They probably just used mercury in small vials and <span style="font-style: italic">claimed</span> it was uranium.)

[Up late tonight - have to make an airport run]
Click to expand...

Holy cow! What memories! I had such fun plinking cans in the back yard with my Daisy BB Gun!
 
I'm from a bit younger generation, but even I grew up with cap guns (black, looked like the real thing). Also rode around in the wayback of the family station wagon.

We've gotten a bit silly as a culture...
grin.gif
 
I'm from the same younger generation. I remember riding in the way back of our pickup. Can't even think of doing that now. Had a Chem set complete with alcohol burner that was a lot of fun. Always seemed to be making HCL acid with it.

Don R
 
Don_R said:
I'm from the same younger generation. I remember riding in the way back of our pickup. Can't even think of doing that now. Had a Chem set complete with alcohol burner that was a lot of fun. Always seemed to be making HCL acid with it.

Don R
Click to expand...

I had a chemistry set, until I made a stink bomb that went off in the house. Mom sent me and the chemistry set outside. She did let me back in later, but the chem. set was history! Just proved that she didn't have a very good sense of humer.
jester.gif
 
TRDejaVu said:
Simpler times...
Click to expand...
The wave of GI's going to school was still underway in the 50's. It was not until later, when we had an over abundance of new lawyers, that things changed. :smirk:
 
coldplugs said:
A stream engine, electrically heated, with safety valve.
Click to expand...

Like this one made in Two Rivers Wisconsin that I just dug out for these pics. Not sure when it was made but it has the old fabric covered cord and no ground. Imagine kids playing with water and electricity with no ground even.
 
What was the cord for? I have an engine somethng like that but it has a small spirit burner to heat the boiler.
 
Some of you more senior members will remember when that cord was made, most houses only had a two wire 30 amp system. A lot of homes only had knob and tube wiring. The knob being a porcelain fixture with a nail in it which held two individual wires and nailed to the rafters and studding down through the walls. The same as used on electric fencing for years after. After drilling a hole, the ceramic tubes went through any wood in the way and the individual wires were threaded through them, thus the term, Knob and Tube. The biggest draw back was there were no ground wires in the house from the main box and, the main box only had screw in fuses. We bought a house once that was on the historical record and the only thing we were allowed at the time to change was the wiring and hidden plumbing, which was a night mare! Never again!
 
tomshobby said:
That cord fits on the two prongs in back under that shroud. This unit is electric powered.
Click to expand...
I guess not quite like mine, which is live steam powered (if power is the right word - maybe 1 antpower!)
 
I recently picked up a Vac-U-Form to make lexan windshields for my HO slot cars. Even now I have to be careful not to burn myself with hot, melted plastic. I remember a local drive-in restaurant had a machine that made plastic skulls and other shapes that you selected, and they came out too hot to handle. Imagine what the McDonald's coffee lawyers would do with one of these machines.
 
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:]Imagine what the McDonald's coffee lawyers would do with one of these machines.[/QUOTE]

Dave, this is why we don't build things in this country any longer. We graduate too many lawyers and not enough engineers and tradesmen. So instead of someone designing something new to market and sell that creates jobs, they sue someone which keeps the government and state run court systems busy. Hence, less private sector employees and more government employees.

That was not a political statement intended to start down the wrong path, just common sense fact.
 
Brooklands said:
I recently picked up a Vac-U-Form to make lexan windshields for my HO slot cars. Even now I have to be careful not to burn myself with hot, melted plastic. I remember a local drive-in restaurant had a machine that made plastic skulls and other shapes that you selected, and they came out too hot to handle. Imagine what the McDonald's coffee lawyers would do with one of these machines.
Click to expand...

I did a small amount of vacuforming when I was a kid and still built models. I usually borrowed a rig. I also used to melt sprue to make stuff like rollbars for racing cars.

The machine you describe sounds like a Mold-A-Rama. These things are legendary around Chicago, since pretty much every museum or tourist attraction has about a half dozen of them. Which reminds me that I stupidly didn't get a Mold-A-Rama dinosaur last time I was at the Natural History museum.

FWIW, the Sears and Penney's catalogs from the mid seventies are far more fun. Gigantic video cameras where you have to carry the recording bit on a strap over your shoulder, rec room sets made of old barrels, and some fantastic fashions.

-Wm.
 
As a 12 year old or so...I used to spend hours dreaming over sporting equipment, toys, etc found in the back of the Sears catalog...ESPECIALLY the Christmas edition in colour!
 
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