Sears Roebuck Sold Cars!

Discussion in 'Other Reminiscences' started by Frank Sanoica, Mar 5, 2016.

  1. Frank Sanoica

    Frank Sanoica Supreme Member
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  2. Linda Binning

    Linda Binning Veteran Member
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    Of course I remember the Henry J. I'll have to ask my husband in the a.m. if he knew about these Allstate cars. Hard to imagine now days isn't it? Sears selling a car.

    Well, he got up to get a drink of water at 11:40 pm so I asked him and he did know they sold them and he remembered them as a Henry J but I told him the ones sold from Sears were called an Allstate. This might be the first time I've known something about cars he didn't. :) Thanks Frank. :)
     
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    Last edited: Mar 6, 2016
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  3. Krissttina Isobe

    Krissttina Isobe Veteran Member
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    I've never heard of Sears selling cars. My Mother told me of the Sears Catalog and I go shopping there ever since it opened up on Oahu. I like Sears for they always got the things I need to buy on sale all the time. Really Sears sold cars once upon a time! Wow!!
     
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  4. Ike Willis

    Ike Willis Supreme Member
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    Yes, I've seen 'em and wanted one. A commercial fisherman in my town had one back in the 1950's.
     
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  5. Ike Willis

    Ike Willis Supreme Member
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    Montgomery-Ward sold tractors too.
     

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  6. Bonnie Thomas

    Bonnie Thomas Veteran Member
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    Never heard of a car called the Allstate, but do remember my mother buying a Henry J... it was robin egg blue.
    I thought it was just the silliest looking car at the time..
     
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  7. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    Sears used to sell houses too.
     
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  8. Mari North

    Mari North Veteran Member
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  9. Diane Lane

    Diane Lane Veteran Member
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    Wow, I had no idea. I can recall the big thick Sears catalogue at the house and looking through it for ideas of what we wanted for Christmas, but I had no idea they sold cars or houses. I never even heard of Montgomery Ward until I moved down here to Texas, I don't think they had a presence in the Northeast US.
     
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  10. Bonnie Thomas

    Bonnie Thomas Veteran Member
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    Living in Ohio, I remember the other big warehouse catalog stores, out of Chicago .... Spiegel, Aldens (mostly clothes/housewares) and Warshawsky (car parts)... became JC Whitney..
    Loved looking thru those big clothing catalogs.
     
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    Last edited: Apr 13, 2016
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  11. Mari North

    Mari North Veteran Member
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    Montgomery Ward (often called "Monkey Ward" in jest) was very big in my part of the northeast, @Diane Lane . In fact, we had a Wards brick and mortar store about 25 miles away, and that was a couple of decades before we got a Sears.
     
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  12. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    The closest stores to us were the ones in Spokane. I don't remember ever seeing a Montgomery-Wards store there; but my mom used to go to Sears all of the time when she went into Spokane shopping.
    We got all of the catalogs though, and there was a catalog store in town where she could go to order items from the catalog. I don't remember if she picked them up there, or if they were shipped to our housse; but I think that we went back down to the store and picked up the order when it came in.

    I didn't know that they sold large items like cars and tractors, either. One of my dad's relatives did have a Henry J; I don't really remember the car very much, but it was an unusual name, which stuck in my mind.
    The Sears in Spokane had what was called the Sears Farm Store, and that is where we bought the saddle and other tack when my folks got me my first pony.
    I remember that I wanted a fancy black saddle with silver trim and tapaderos "just like Roy Rogers"; but my mom picked out a plain old brown basket-stamp saddle that she thought was appropriate for me at the time.
     
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  13. Frank Sanoica

    Frank Sanoica Supreme Member
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    A bit of what I learned then, having worked for Sears for 12 years, in Phoenix. I was single-handedly building our custom home outside of PHX, started in 1985, otherwise unemployed. In March, '86, I applied to Sears in answer to a part-time job ad for Maintenance persons, figuring I could work on the house during daylight hours, and work at Sears evenings. I knew I was way over-qualified, so did my interviewer, who was Maintenance Supervisor, and he told me so. He was curious as to why I would seek such a low-level job, (was I a doper, drunk, possibly went through his mind). When I explained my circumstances, he hired me.

    Sears was that year, I believe, celebrating it's 100th. anniversary. Within a year or two, operations looked so bleak, they began selling off many of their household name companies: Allstate Insurance, a major stake in Discover Card, etc. In '91, Corporate operations decided to remove most of the Maintenance Function from store-level control, and create a new group: roving Maintenance operations. I applied, and became one of 6 guys who handled Store District 251, which encompassed Santa Fe, Farmington, Roswell, Albuquerque, Las Cruces (New Mexico), El Paso, most of the Arizona stores, and occasionally, Las Vegas. Flew in and drove a rented vehicle when away from Phoenix; I got to drive virtually every make of new car, almost one a week! Fun! As it turned out, my previous mechanical and electrical abilities were well-appreciated, for eventually my efforts saved the company several hundreds of thousands of dollars which would have otherwise gone to outside contractors. Apologize for getting so long-winded, here.

    Regarding Montgomery Wards, rather interestingly, my niece's husband, who had been in various Administrative positions with a number of companies, hired on as a Vice President, during plans to dissolve the company. His responsibility was to effectively and economically lay off tens of thousands of employees, which he achieved, and then took leave himself, with a gargantuan severance package. Frank
     
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  14. Diane Lane

    Diane Lane Veteran Member
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    Ah, I guess it was just my portion that got left out. I thought it was a Southern/Midwest thing and we got left out.

    I didn't realize Spiegel was a warehouse catalogue store. I know there was a showroom in the next city, and we'd go there occasionally.

    It's amazing how much business has changed over the years, with so many of those large companies now gone or changed quite a bit.
     
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  15. Bonnie Thomas

    Bonnie Thomas Veteran Member
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    They've all morphed into different businesses over the years. Go online to Sears, and you get Sears/K Mart.

    More than you wanted to know about Spiegel:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiegel_(catalog)

    ... They came in behind Sears, Wards back in the 40's/50's.
    They had big spring/summer - fall/winter catalogs that they mailed across the country at that time.

    From the link..:)
    Spiegel benefited from frequent television exposure as a source of prizes to numerous game shows, most notably Hollywood Squares, whose announcer Kenny Williams would always emphasize their catalog offered "over 50,000 items" and would tag his on-air promotional announcements for them with their address, "Chicago 60609." On most occasions, the programs would award contestants gift certificates of a certain dollar amount towards items from their catalog, since it provided versatility and flexibility by, in effect, letting the winner choose their own prize.
     
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