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Do you remember buying rifles and shotgun from the Sears catalogue? Shipped to your door!
dreher
Member Posts: 8,893 ✭✭✭✭
I don't remember a large selection but lots of different military surplus rifles. The Winchester 94 was one rifle I remember. I seem to remember bolt actions, lever actions and various shotguns but I'm talking being young, like 8, 9 or 10. Trying to remember things from 65 years ago is difficult!! If some of you with better memories would like to add to the guns they sold please do.
I do remember you could order a Mexican burro or even a monkey from Sears and Roebuck. I wonder how many burros and monkeys Sears and Roebuck ever sold??
Can you imagine our parents wearing out our butts with belts or switches if we came walking home leading a burro or carrying a monkey?? LOL I still wouldn't be able to sit down 65 years later!!
Comments
Heck yes, and not just Sears. You could order any gun shipped directly to your door from a lot of places. That was back in the days when Americans were considered innocent until proven guilty instead of the other way around.
I have a old sears catalog from the early 1900's.
You name it they sold it. Quack doctor stuff to complete homes.
Never ordered it sent to my house but did pick up several that were catalog orders at the store
J.C. Penny's catalogue had a full line of rifles and shotguns. My first shotgun came from Montgomery Ward, I purchased my first revolver from F.W. Woolworth.
They have reprinted the Sears Catalog from (I think) 1898 and 1906. You can get it in hardback thru your library. Still remember their 69 cent .22 revolver. You could also buy opium and cocaine, and dynamite and caps (they had to come by Railway Express, not by mail)
just pulled out a box of 12ga shells from back of the cabinet the other day, it had a sticker on it from JC Pennys, $4.99 couldn't tell you how long I've had it.......
My dad ordered a Colt SP-01 for with a small tear out form in the "Shotgun news" paper. At least I thing it was Shotgun news. Anyway it was $189.95 in about 1966 or so. I don't remember how long it took but it was the real thing. The bad news it got stolen from his truck in about 1972 or so. The good news is, he replace it with 2 new ones in 1975.
When my dad got out of the Army in 1946, he wanted a good rifle and a good shotgun for use on the farm. He ordered his guns from Sears and they came in the mail. He got a Win. Model 62A and a Win. Model 12 in 12 gauge.
Very common guns to be sure, but they mean a great deal to me.
i remember all the catalogues and looking thru them till i wore them out. never had any money to order anything though. but it was sure fun to look and dream.
I remember back in 1963 we had an Army Surplus place in Atlanta on Buford Highway named Old Sarge.
My mom would take me and my brother over there and drop us off and leave us for the whole afternoon.
I remember a wooden 55 gallon drum full of German Mausers, $12 each. And next to that, a drum full of 8mm ammo.
I was 12 years old and it would have been legal for me to buy a Mauser. Of course, I think Mr. Old Sarge would have wanted my mother's permission which would have been denied.
Back then a rifle was regarded as a kind of tool, like an axe or chain saw. It was a useful but dangerous tool, not an Evil Entity like it is regarded today.
At last!! something I am not old enough to remeber.😊 This must have been before Columbus got here though, because I do remember that.
I have a Springfield '03 my father bought from Montgomery Wards & remember picking it up at the store.
Allen,If its the same Old Sarge I remember,he told us some of this stuff is still dangerous.He said he wouldnt sell it to you unless you were a certain height,and that certain height was tall enough to put the money on the counter.
I remember guns hanging on the wall in Sears. You could pull one down yourself to look at it. Most all hardware stores had guns and ammo too.
My grandparents house on their ranch was ordered from Sears in the 19-teens and shipped railway express.
I some what enjoy looking at old sears and sales catalogs
close as I can come back in the late 1970's when Woolworth was on the down hill slide fast ( I had bought a couple guns from them ) but toward the end they had racks of surplus rifles . I do not remember the names or what types they were just that had the rack that use to have new guns loaded with surplus cosmoline (SP ) packed rifles and dirt cheap . I never looked close but now think maybe I should have
I agree about out so called free and rights have long since gone by the way side I guess the words "shall not be infringed " has been scribbled out and soon to be the entire 2nd will be like the 13th floor of a building ( or use to be ) its there but not counted ..
I also remember delivering all those $@*& catalogs & they wouldn't even give us a mule to help carry them. Strange how the same stores then complained about online sales. What goes around comes around.
What? No one has said anything about remembering "using" them (and other mags) in the outhouse?
Grandma ordered, and received, a 22 rifle from one of the mags back then, but I do not know which one.
I will add in as a young kid just getting a Christmas sears catalog was a thrill
it was well used up by Christmas , and no never got anything but oh the dreams and wishes it inspired
as for the out house TP replacement my family down south still had them in use when I was a kid and we visited
but when they went to the glossy paper in the sales catalogs and not the newspaper type it may have been better looking lost a lot of its wiping abilities
I still do have a 4 lane aurora ho scale slot car track I got for Christmas mid to late 1960's by my mom saving the top value stamps given out at gas stations and food markets xx amount of books trade them in for goods ,
funny same story us kids wore out the pages on there Christmas toy issues , some areas had green stamps ours had the top value brand
some nights I just realize how old I am 🤨
1958 shotgun news czech anti tank in crate ship to your door 295.00
Got my BB gun in the basement of the Sears store. Remembering looking at Ted Williams shotguns in their catalog.
I remember back in the early '50's some of my buds would enjoy looking at the woman's undies in the Penny & Sears catalogs. Naturally, I never did.
Almost all of the guns that my dad had came from the western auto store in town it is also where I bought my first one.
I know what you mean Jeff! I never, not even once, never, never ever, looked at women's underwear in a Sears catalogue! 😂😋
Allen I remember Old Sarge what a great place.
I don't remember buying guns and haveing them shipped to my house but I bought a 30-30 a few months ago and the guy threw in a bunch of ammo. I got 4 boxes of this:
I shot a few and they worked fine.
Back of comic books order surplus rifles, and MUST be 21 to order the Lugers and P-38s and such, sign on the line and put cash in the envelope and it got there.
I remember drooling at my stepdads sears stuff
Brandishing a fire arm, and no bullets so will use yours ... still up the creek without a paddle this one? Semi automatic holds around 15!
I've payed $240 for a 4hrs annuities training texted thing the question is; where is it the plot thickens ...
OK :
I can remember when Mom went 'shopping' over at the Sears store ( bout once a month ) : she would drop me off in The Sporting Goods Dept. - more guns than I had ever seen in one place I would look around and Dream for hours !!!
Bought my first ( own / bought ) Gun ( S&W model 916 12 ga. shotgun ) @ 17 years old ? @ a Tempo Dept. Store !
Hunted with this for Years ! wish I still had it , just because it was my first purchase !
Thanks !!!
I Grew Old Too Fast (And Smart Too damn Slow !!!) !!!
I remember those wooden barrels stuffed with all sorts of old military rifles...My mother had saved enough S&H green stamps to get a free sowing machine...
Combat Vet VN
D.A.V Life Member
I still have my grampa's winchester model 62 he told me when he gave it to me years ago he got it out of the sears catalogue for $5.00 don't know what year though....
I visited a hardware store in Yazoo City, MS while I was working on a project there back in 2010 and they had a pretty good selection of guns, ammo and reloading supplies. I hadn't seen anything like that in a long time. I miss the days when every dept. store and hardware store had guns for sale.
Allstate Henry J
my first two guns I bought came from westernauto next several from Woolworth and even a couple from Rinks ( a old Walmart want to be dept store in the 19 70"s ) but dad had to sign for them as I was still 16 when I started buying them
a local family owned the western auto store good people
I got to know the family the two sons later on in life ( they there parents were the first to get me drunk and 1st time I drank at a Christmas party LOL ) and worked with one son later on many years later . they had a huge HO slot car track ( sponsored by aurora ) on the second floor I bought many a car and tons of hop up and replacement parts .
reason I bring it up I use to notice the new cars looked like they had been ran plating on the pick up shoes worn down a bit as a kid i thought factory testing wrong !
the two brothers told me after hours they and the family would race every car and pick out the fastest cars as they came in to the store 😣
When America really was great!
We used to get the "big book" from Sears, and I looked through it a good bit. By the time I was able to appreciate firearms much, Sears had stopped selling hand guns. According to one manager, the decision to stop selling handguns was prompted by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. But there were still long guns in the catalog.
Main one I remember was a Universal M-1 Carbine. It took up nearly a whole page, and the ad used a term strange to me, "gas-operated." GAS operated? Whoever heard of such? Anyway, it was a nifty looking little gun, and I thought it might be a good one to own. I asked my baseball coach about it, and he said the .30 M-1 cartridge was too light for deer.
I also remember seeing Mosin-Nagant rifles in the Sears book. There was the standard 1891 military rifle, and a cut-down "sporterized" version. I asked my coach about the sporter version, and he said it was a junky rifle, and would kick the crap out of me.
I was between dads at the time, and my coach was gun-savvy and the only male mentor I had.
Nunn
one of the 1st rifles I bought ( I was 17 yrs old ) at "Woolworth" was a universal made m1 carbine had a 5 round plastic magazine 69.00 I think I still have the hang tag the gun long gone
I some how got a hold of a numrich (sp ) catalog maybe out of a add in a gun magazine not sure what they call the place now and ordered two 30 round GI mags for it on arrival they looked like they went thru WWII dragged behind a half track the mags were the most rusty beat up I have ever seen even until this day but I got them working .
I had nobody in the family or friends that knew squat about guns other than carrying one all the time in a pocket , My dad had a old 22 and had grew up with guns but as a tool his dad and him to feed the family when he was young basic load point shoot wipe down with 3in1 and good to go
Roses department store also sold guns . I have a mosin nagent and an Isaphore Lee enfield from there . Think I paid about $70.00 a piece for them .
I remember being 12, and walking solo up to the gun counter in my local department store. Asking to see a .22LR rifle, having it handed to me, and being asked by the clerk if I wanted to buy it, as he placed two boxes of ammo down on the counter.
Warshawski JC Whitney I really liked that catalog in the day. Better than ebay or amazon.
Still have my Monky Wards rifle, for a 22 it is pretty darn good, even at 100 meters.