Let us not forget the old Sears cataloges this time of year!!!

My beloved 1966 Honda CA 160. No longer with me. Sold it last year.

rsv1cox wrote:

roddie wrote:Cool stuff Mark!

Sears sold EVERYTHING that you needed. It's fascinating; that such a retail giant is no longer a player..

And I would like to know how the heck that happened!!!!

Well one name - Bezos.  Raking in billions while paying his employees peanuts and limiting their benefits.  

My take on this sad phenomenon is that it was caused by the same thing that busted Blockbuster when Netflix came on the scene and wanted to partner with them. They refused, because who needs this little upstart!  We're the biggest and best and we don't need your stupid little idea.

The world changed around them and they couldn't or wouldn't change with it.  If Sears had started doing an online catalog like their old print version when Bezos started Amazon, they would probably still be king of the hill, or at least still near the top.

Too big, too slow, big bureaucracy not wanting to change the business model, I don't know, but whatever the reason, they dropped the ball. Breaks my heart.  

Love or hate Walmart, seems they're giving Amazon a little competition because they jumped on the wagon pretty quickly. Online order, delivery a couple hours later, that's the new order.  Walmart is delivering what people want.  Sears didn't.

rsv1cox wrote:

roddie wrote:Cool stuff Mark!

Sears sold EVERYTHING that you needed. It's fascinating; that such a retail giant is no longer a player..

And I would like to know how the heck that happened!!!!

Well one name - Bezos.  Raking in billions while paying his employees peanuts and limiting their benefits.  

If you want to back up a little further, Sears(as much as i loved them) crushed a lot of small businesses.
Bob

I had a tin garage somewhat like this one. I think that "Marx" likely made them for Sears & Roebuck Co.

Roadmaster boys bike ad Christmas of 1953.

I wanted to buy one of these train sets. Pages from Sears and Penney catalogs from 70s.

ya know ....tripping down 1950~1980 memory lane here it occurs to me......with the exception of cheap rc cars today and nintendo type e-gaming....WE had way cooler toys.....when my kids were young 1985~1995, our shopping in k mart, wally world, sears , target, or toys r us was disappointing from my perspective

You're right Fred.  Us Baby Boomers had the coolest toys.  We also had the best music in a hundred years, the most iconic cars and motorcycles in the history of both and drive-in theaters.

It wasn't perfect, we also had the riots in Watts and Newark.  Then there was Selma, Kent State, John, Martin and Bobby, and of course the horrors that the war in Vietnam brought about.  Later there were gas lines, double-digit inflation and interest rates and who can forget Watergate.

John Kennedy may have considered it a curse, but I think the saying "may you live in interesting times" is our blessing.

We got to watch Neil and Buzz walk on the moon... LIVE!  

Doesn't get much more interesting than that!

https://youtu.be/iGtpGwjMHbk

I'm enjoying this thread. Watched the whole video Fred, but I do not remember any of those commercials. Probably as now, I didn't watch commercials. I remember watching the first Vanguard missile launch live on B&W TV. Blew up on the pad while the Ruskies were having successes. Dark day for America and I felt it.

Roddie, (darn software always capitalizes your avatar) my son has that exact same model garage in his garage.

And Davep and dckrsn true words. I lived through those times. Too bad others didn't. We are blessed with peace and prosperity and the majority of Americans do not know it and the media is to blame. It's such an aggravation to me when the media hides positive news and accentuates the negative to political advantage.

I vaguely remember some of those. 1960s, I started 1st grade. Back then, $7.98 is now $60. Most of those toys were deluxe toys for the better to do children. I was afforded the entry level Gilbert switcher engine train with 3 cars on a circular track. We also played with cap bombs, balsa $0.05 and $0.10 gliders. My father was enlisted at the time (riffed end of Korean War, re-enlisted, went from Captain to Staff Sergeant, later got Tech.)

I played with neat toys, but they weren't the expensive ones, but got a few of the middle of the line ones. Remember Kenner Girder and Panel set?

Nowadays, most kids have cell phones, which is more than I had. We had a dial up phone (only 1 and no bedroom extensions). I didn't learn to dial home until I was in high school in the late 1960's. Times have changed.

The Sears catalogue was the highly anticipated thing in the mail in September.
I was fortunate enough to get a fair amount of my toy wishes from it early but got a lot of clothes in my teens.
Compared to then, this year our three grand kids got many mindboggling advanced toys  that probably were more than I got in 10 Christmas seasons !
To show them how it used to be, I pulled my favorite book off the shelf called "Famous Fighters of WWII" and told them to look inside the front cover.
They saw that my mother wrote ( their great grand mother) my name, address, and phone number.
What flipped them out was that there was no zip code, only city mail zone code 8 and my phone number was Express 9-XXXX !!
They didn't believe me when I told them that we watched John Glenn's launch live in my 9th grade "TV Science" class that was broad cast live each day from Raleigh.
That was cutting edge at the time.
Boy have times changed !!

rsv1cox wrote:I'm enjoying this thread.  Watched the whole video Fred, but I do not remember any of those commercials. Probably as now, I didn't watch commercials.  I remember watching the first Vanguard missile launch live on B&W TV.  Blew up on the pad while the Ruskies were having successes.  Dark day for America and I felt it.  

Roddie, (darn software always capitalizes your avatar) my son has that exact same model garage in his garage.

And Davep and dckrsn true words.  I lived through those times. Too bad others didn't.  We are blessed with peace and prosperity and the majority of Americans do not know it and the media is to blame.  It's such an aggravation to me when the media hides positive news and accentuates the negative to political advantage.  

If nothing else, Bob, we've got the memories. Lotta people don't.
Like our fellow Bob sang, "Thanks for the memory".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNpmaYMpXwY
Bob

66 Malibu wrote:I was fortunate enough to get a fair amount of my toy wishes from it early but got a lot of clothes in my teens.

In a rural high school in Hawaii back in the very early 1970's, I worked after school and on weekends at a poultry farm for $1.25 an hour. My parents didn't buy me much clothes, but I used my wages to buy my own clothes. I was able to afford the better clothing as a result. Some of the kids in school referred to me as the spoiled rich kid. That was unfair as I was using my after school wages to dress better. I'm half Japanese from my mother's side, 3/8ths Pennsylvania Deutsch and 1/8th Iroquois, and of all things was referred to as a "Haole" - Hawaiian for foreigner often used towards Caucasians although I'm more Oriental in appearance than Caucasian. Much of that came about I believe because my father was a school teacher at the school I attended. I've been mistaken for Native American and Hispanic here in the Southwest US, go figure.

Since I arrived at school an hour earlier and left an hour later because my father taught at the school, I'd practice my clarinet and alto sax at the band room before and after school. I practiced enough, that after high school I passed the audition for the 264th Army Band, Fort Shafter, Honolulu, and spent my enlistment time as a military musician after my training.

66 Malibu wrote:They didn't believe me when I told them that we watched John Glenn's launch live in my 9th grade "TV Science" class that was broad cast live each day from Raleigh. That was cutting edge at the time. Boy have times changed !!

I was in 2nd grade at the time. Our classroom didn't have TV in rural Virginia outside of Hopewell. My father then was stationed at an Air Force radar site called "Little Air Force" inside the Fort Lee Army Base near Hopewell. However, I remember the news of Kennedy's assassination when I was in 4th grade in Biloxi, Mississippi.

There, when my father was stationed at Keesler Air Force Base, used to buy North Pacific gliders for $0.10, landing gear-less $0.15 Skeeters which I converted to ROG (rise off ground) with landing gear from crashed $0.25 Sleek Streaks. Used to fly those for hours, when I wasn't flying North Pacific kites for $0.10 (1964) and later $0.15 each (1966), kite string for $0.05 and later $0.10 each spool. They still had sketches of F-80's, F-84's, F-86's and F-94's on pastel colored paper of green, blue, light red, orange and yellow. They must have been selling them for years, even though later aircraft already were out by then.

George,
I have had so many of those .10/.25 balsa gliders since I was a kid, that you could probably fill a 55 gallon drum full of wrecked balsa.
I just bought several at Dollar Tree, for a dollar of course, for my 2nd grade grandson and the kid next door to fly in our front yard.
They have a ball flying them and I have a ball teaching them how to adjust the wing for level flight and loops. Great cheap fun!!

When I was very young, there was balsa glider that had a spring mechanism to fold the wings back for launch and you attached a large rubber band on a small dowel to propel it very high. The metal nose weight extended down from the nose angled back toward the tail so you could attach the rubber band to it for launch. You shot it up maybe 40-50 feet then the wings unfolded and it glided a long time from a much higher altitude than a regular hand launch. I've looked for years for another and still can't remember it's name. I'd love to buy another but I'm sure they were all used up many years ago.
Steve....

I had a cut out airplane book like this:

https://www.etsy.com/sg-en/listing/679624514/paper-airplane-book-modern-fighters-to#

I remember those folding wing gliders Steve, but I don't remember who made them or what they were called. They were great! I've been looking for years too. If you ever find one, let me know and I'll do the same. Maybe if one turns up we can make some templates and make some of our own

This is it, the Jim Walker Interceptor:

http://americanjuniorclassics.com/interceptor/interceptorhome.htm

Yep. That's it Eric! Boy, ol' Jim Walker had a lot of different things going, didn't he? I still have a U-Reely handle my dad got me in the 60's.

Plans are available:

https://www.coxengineforum.com/t13606-jim-walker-s-interceptor-plan#175442

Dave, George , Levent,
Wow !!!!! I can't believe you guys even knew what I was talking about, much less finding pictures and plans for the Interceptor!!
You all made my day !!!!!
I think I will try make one and try to recreate the spring mechanism..

Thanks a Million guys !!!!!

This is probably not a very impressive thing for most of you, but it's pretty special to me.  I cracked up my first balsa, silk and dope airplane with this a long time ago.  Thanks Pop!  I miss you.