Website for Vintage Catalogs

[EventHorizon]

I have only gone through a couple (rather quickly) but thought this topic would fit here best.

 

Scanned Vintage Catalogs such as Sears, Spiegel.........

 

Here is an example from the 1942 Spiegel catalog.

Edited November 18, 2008 by EventHorizon

[Fernan]

Great resource. Thanks.

 

 

Fernan

[Univer]

Hi,

 

Thanks for the link - great resource.

 

The Spiegel catalog page alone is full of interesting info:

 

1. The fact that "B" - the so-called "Economy Priced" pen - doesn't even seem to have a name. I've got one of these, and I've often wondered what it was called. I guess I would have been wondering the same thing in 1942! (Interesting, too, that this pen's barrel seems identical to the barrel of the "Selecta-Point" below.)

 

2. The fact that "D" - the gold-capped set - is described as having "rich 12K Solid Gold caps." I haven't seen a reference elsewhere to non-14K gold-capped Skylines.

 

3. The fact that "F" - the "Selecta-Point Pen" - is described as featuring "lever vacuum filling." There's been discussion, over in the Sheaffer forum, about Sheaffer's use of the sub-brand names "Vacuum" and "Vacuum-Fil" on pens that were lever fillers; after all, "lever" and "vacuum" are traditionally classed as different filling systems. Some folks have wondered whether the term "vacuum" had a certain high-tech appeal by virtue of its association with "modern" plunger-fillers and the Vacumatic. Seeing "lever" and "vacuum" linked together, in a product description that's trying mighty hard to make this humble little instrument sound like a "fine gift," makes me think that might indeed have been the case.

 

Very cool stuff! Thanks again.

 

Cheers,

 

Jon

[johnboz]

I visited that site a while back and immediately went to the 1980s catalogs to see the toys I grew up playing with. For some reason it didn't occur to me to look in the older ones for FPs! There goes my afternoon...

[Firefyter-Emt]

I will tell you what, that treasure chest box is pretty dang cool!

[EventHorizon]

After looking at these catalogs a little more at the end of my lunch I started thinking to myself......"I wonder if I can buy a few of these catalogs somewhere"?

 

I'm sure I would get that "Are you kidding me" look from the wife. :blink:

[Professor]

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' inflation adjustment calculator, the lowest priced set on the 1942 page (the "Treasure Chest Set") at US$.79 would cost US$10.50 today. The highest priced item ("Gold-Capped Eversharp") at US$16.23 would cost $215.64 today. Quite an interesting range of pricing on one page of one retailer's catalogue.

 

I wonder how many Gold-Capped Eversharps were sold in that first full year of US involvement in World War II?

[cfclark]

Wishbookweb is blocked from my work network--don't know if it's for copyright-protection reasons, or...is there racy stuff to be seen in any of those? (Maybe the underwear sections, hmm...)

 

Guess I'll take a look when I get home.

[tawanda]

Oh wow! EventHorizon,

Thanks so much for givingme such a trip down memory lane (won't say which decade was mine, however!) I could look at these and giggle for hours!

T

[rhr]

Take a closer look at the "Treasure Chest Set" on page 17 of the Spiegel "Holiday Greetings" catalogue from 1942.

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v71/rhrpen/WatTreasureChestSpiegel.jpg

 

It doesn't explicitly say that it's a Waterman's set, and it does say that it's a "push-button filling pen", which doesn't look like any Waterman's pen from the 1940s, but it is grouped on the page with another boxed Waterman's pen set. Looking closely at the box, however, it looks exactly the same as the Waterman's Treasure Chest box from the 1920s. Here's a picture of a box that sold on Ebay recently.

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v71/rhrpen/WatTreasureChest.jpg

 

Perhaps it wasn't a big seller in the 1920s, and Waterman's had an overstock of these boxes, and then later they got rid of them at a blow-out price. The "Buy It Now" price for the box on Ebay was $200.00, and they got it. And that was without any cheap pen set in it. I wonder whether the 1942 Spiegel box had the Waterman's logo on the lid, like this one does.

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v71/rhrpen/WatTreasureChest2.jpg

 

George Kovalenko.

 

Edited January 1, 2009 by rhr

[gregkoos]

Nice resource, And like Jon, I was able to date and identify an Eversharp Economy Pen that I have in my collection.