The first Sears Christmas Book, in 1933, was a modest 87 pages. It offered fruitcakes and Mickey Mouse watches and live canaries. By 1968, the catalog had ballooned to 608 pages, and sold quilted ...

Like an analog Amazon, the 1968 Sears "Wish Book" sold an unrivaled assortment of mail-order goods, enough to fulfill every Christmas list at a time when trends started on department store floors ...

Sears launched its first Christmas Wishbook catalog since 2011 this year. To take a look back at holiday catalogs since they began in 1933, the Tribune visited the Sears catalog archives in ...

1967: Sears creates DieHard batteries. 1968: The Christmas catalog is re-christened the Wish Book. 1973: The Sears Tower, then the tallest building in the world, becomes Sears's new home in Chicago.

Veteran Christmas collectors Dave Harms and Lynne Eltrevoog of Marengo have re-created a Sears catalog scene in exacting detail, featuring original "blow mold" plastic angels, a snowman, a 10-foot ...

The inaugural Sears Christmas Book had just seventy-eight pages. By the time it was renamed the Sears Wish Book in 1968, it had ballooned to 608 pages. In 1992, it had an all-time high of 834 pages.

In 1933, the first Sears wish book, titled “Sears Christmas Book Catalog” was published. Popular items that year were dolls, toy autos, a Mickey Mouse watch and Lionel trains.

Sears is bringing back its Wish Book holiday catalog after a six-year hiatus. “Our members told us they missed the Wish Book, so we had to bring it back, but in a special way that lets you share ...

The Sears-Roebuck catalog and my people have a long, tangled history. Into the mountains, these catalogs took modern America and household items that they would have never seen anywhere except in ...

Opinion In the Sears catalog, a kid could find just about every toy imaginable Published: Nov. 26, 2021, 3:30 p.m. By Frances Coleman ...