How did the Sears catalog take over the world?

to look through the old Sears catalog? Yeah? I used to thump through it. Oh man. It was so huge for us. And for some reason, I never saw it in my own house. I think my parents must have just been good at making it disappears something. But at mama's house, you know, a grandmother has to have this on the coffee table. She always had it sitting out and I would thumb through seriously every page of it, circling things like remote control cars, ThunderCats figures. That's where

I got the light, right, so many awesome toys in there. Yeah, there's really something so magical about it, all right? And did you did you see my calculator. Watch I get that on my face. Anyway, as the holidays are approaching, we were talking about the old Sears catalog recently and wondering how did it become such a big deal and what are some of the weirdest things ever offered in it?

And speaking of weird, we talked about doing this topic months ago and it's just so strange that, seriously, it is just by accident that this ends up publishing on Black Friday. So anyway, that's what we'll be talking about today. Let's get started hei their podcast listeners, Welcome the part time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and it's always I'm joined by my good friend man guest and sitting on the

other side of the soundproof class man. I don't know if you've noticed this, but Kristen has this fancy new office chair out there. I think it's an executive chair. It's like high back and everything. Wow. That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. And on today's show, we're ushering in the holiday shopping season with a fun look back

at the golden age of Sears. Now, you know, it's no secret that the iconic American retailer has seen its better days, and in fact, there's a good chance you haven't stepped foot in a Sear store and quite some time,

or maybe even never at all. But you know, with a hundred and thirty one years under the company's belt, we thought, why focus on the negative exactly, So instead we're gonna explore the solid hundred years or so when Sears was at the top of its game, and we'll cover some of the company's breakthrough ideas and not get a sense of how a humble mail order service became

this massive retail giant. You know. So I want to mention upfront that today's episode works is kind of a companion to the show we did on Amazon just a couple of weeks ago. And it's not to say that you have to have listened to that one, but you have to listen, you do. Okay, stop, now, go back and listen to that one. But you know, they're all kinds of interesting parallels between the two companies. So I guess you are better off if you're up to date

on Amazon. Yeah, and and that's really one of the great things about a company has long lived as Sears like it takes on all this added historical value that makes it way more interesting than like your typical retail chan and so for younger companies, Series is kind of this primer of what a business should and shouldn't do in order to weather the ups and downs of the

American economy. But series is longevity also makes it useful in other ways to like take the company's famous catalogs, those at up being these great visual records of how our society, styles and habits have changed over the last century and a half. It was interesting reading up on this something I had not thought about before. But often producers will use Sears catalogs as references when they're working

on period films or Broadway shows. You know, they're also a good way to find costumes or props that are true to the era being depicted. And it's not just Hollywood either, you know, historians rely on the catalogs to look back and kind of get an accurate timeline of when certain products or styles first appeared. Yeah, that's pretty awesome, and those catalogs are such a big part of the

series legacy. We should definitely talk more about them. But first I want to go back to the pre catalog days and get a sense of how series really got to start, all right, So I'll set the scene here. It's it's eighteen eighty six, and you've got a twenty two year old man named Richard Sears, and he's working as a telegraph off operator and a station agent at

a railroad in Minnesota. It's kind of a boring job, but the downtime allows Sears to start a side gig, and he's selling lumber and coal just to kind of supplement his income. Well, one day, a shipment of pocket watches comes in, but the local jeweler refuses to sign for it. It was pretty common in those days that the companies would send these unsolicited merchandise to small town retailers. They'd they'd act like it was this accidental shipment and then say, you know, but you can have it at

this deeply discounted price. But he sends this opportunity for this new side business. So Sears buys the unwanted watches well below cost for himself. He then proceeds to sell to other railroad workers up and down the line. Of the next few months, he turned this fifty dollar investment into a five thousand dollar profit. Yeah, it's an amazing story. So let me pick it up here. He's emboldened by that kind of result, right, So Sears decides to take

a stab at the American dream. He quits his job, orders more watches, and then starts to R. W. Sears Watch Company with in six months, then a year later his business is booming. So he moved the company to Chicago and he starts producing this mail order catalog. Now, admittedly the series catalog starts small. It's less than a hundred pages, and it advertises nothing but watches. A hundred pages of watches. Yeah, but but but then it also

guarantees something revolutionary. And that's the first ever unconditional money back guarantee. So as many times you see that, like on TV or whatever, this all started with Sears. That's pretty interesting. I mean, it's a great idea from a marketing perspective, no question. And you know, it added a nice sense of security to the prospect of these people really kind of seeing it as sending strangers money through the mail. And but but in practice, this revolutionary policy

turned into a huge headache for Sears. Happened pretty quickly. I mean he was making thousands of dollars from watch sales each month, but the cost of these refunds and the replacements, it really started to eat into these profits. But he was pretty smart about it. So what he did next was he hired someone to repair the defective watches, which would make it much cheaper than you know, for for him to be able to honor this guarantee. Right,

So that's when alvat Roebuck enters the picture. He's this watchmaker and repairman who he quickly becomes Sears full blown partner, and together they expanded the business to include all sorts of other products. So you've got jewelry than supporting goods, quickly moves into clothing, bicycles, uh, you know, lots of household products. You don't want to name every single one of them. I could. So Actually at this point, was it was Sears still all male order, or if they

already entered the physical store space as well. Yeah, so Sears actually didn't open a brick and mortar store until for its first thirty years, it was strictly a catalog company, and that was a great business model for them because nearly two thirds of the country's population lived in these

rural regions. This was back in the eighteen nineties, but they decided to capitalize on this newly completed railroad system, and through that, Sears and Roebuck were able to build this loyal customer base in parts of the country that had the most untapped market potential. Yeah. I mean, the biggest competition for oil order in those days came from these general stores scattered through American small towns, and because most of those were either under stocked or overpriced, it

really weren't that much of a threat. Well yeah, I mean, if anything, the general stores were the ones in danger. In fact, I read that the store owners in some towns started offering prizes to local kids who would bring in copies of the Sears catalogs. And it wasn't that the shopkeepers were interested in like studying the competition or matching their prices. They just wanted to get all these things and then have these huge public bonfires where they

would burn all the catalogs. That's pretty extreme, but I mean serious. Stated goal was to save consumers money by cutting out the middleman, and those general stores were the middleman. But that wasn't series is only competition. They had already come under attack from other mail order retailers like you know Montgomery Ward. They had actually been selling city goods to rural clients for about twenty plus years before Sears

got into the business. That's right, Montgomery Ward. I mean, it has less of a presence today than Sears, so it's kind of easy to forget that they were actually the first on this mail order scene. Yeah, and as you'd expect, the companies were arrivals from the start, though, Sears grew so rapidly that it started to outpace Montgomery Award in the eighteen nineties. By nine hundred, Sears of sales had reached ten million dollars versus Wards about nine

million dollars. I mean, the rivalry had grown unfriendly by that point too. So you know, Sears supposedly made his catalogs shorter and narrower so that they'd stick out from the Ward catalogs. Like when customers would stack the catalogs at home, the smaller series catalog would always end up on top. Oh, it's pretty clever. I was trying to figure out how that worked, but that that makes sense, alright.

So so obviously, the railroad was a big part of Sears success, as was the case for many American companies of that era, but we should give a shout out to the postal system, which you know, it gave mail order companies a huge boost in eighteen ninety six, and that's when the Postal Service started guaranteeing mail to all rural areas, so no matter where someone lived, they were allowed to get their mail there, and so it made it much easier for Sears and its competitors to get

their catalogs into these homes of even most out of the way customers. Of course, the Postal Service didn't start shipping packages until you know, a few years later in nineteen thirteen, so customers still had to go to their nearest railroad station in order to pick up their orders. But you know, getting the catalogs at home at least save them the trouble of having to go to these distant post offices or higher private carriers just to bring

them their mail. Definitely, and I can't imagine having to walk miles to a post office just to pick up like what we think of his junk mail today. Yeah, you know it is. It's interesting to think of it that way now, But those catalogs we're we're not considered junk mail at all in the nineteenth century. I mean they actually served a purpose not too dissimilar from how

we use the internet today. You know, you've had anywhere at any time people could flip through the pages of a catalog and learn about a new piece of technology or some breakthrough product, and then they could buy it for themselves if they wanted to. And in fact, that's another way the postal system helped the mail order industry. So they allowed Sears catalog to be shipped for just one cent per pound because they were considered public aids

and the spread of knowledge. I know, I mean that sounds silly at first, like what could be crasser than a company trying to pass off advertisements of some sort of educational service, But I guess if you put yourself in the shoes of someone living in the middle of Wyoming way back in the eighteen nineties, like a serious catalog really would be this window to a world you

wouldn't otherwise see. And the catalogs were definitely meant to advertise products and make money, but consumer education was in the mix as well. Yeah, And you know, you sometimes hear that Sears taught Americans how to shop, and there's clearly some truth to that for millions of shoppers, this year's catalog was kind of their first introduction to mail order services, and for better or worse, the catalog also

played a role in the development of America's consumer culture. Yeah, that sounds right to me, especially when you look at how the catalog ballooned year after years more products were added. I mean, in the early nineteen hundreds, the Sears catalog was over five hundred pages, and at its peak in nineteen fifteen, the General Merchandise Catalog, it's swelled over twelve hundred pages. Whoa nine year old will would have been

so jealous of that. Somebody paid so many circles. So it included a hundred thousand items, weighed four pounds, and brought the company over a hundred million dollars in annual sales. Good lord, but so wait, you said that the catalog's peak was in nineteen fifteen, so it started shrinking after

that was more than a hundred years ago. Yeah, so the nation had urbanized quite a bit by then, and cars were becoming the rage, and suddenly rural consumers were moving to cities where easy access to stores lessen their need for mail order services, and Sears kept track with the shifting market until nineteen twenty five, when it responded by opening their first physical department stores. Yeah, and it's it's worth mentioning that by by this point, Richard Sears

and Alva Roebuck we were out of the picture. I mean, Roebuck had sold his interest in the company decades earlier, and Sears had retired back in nineteen o eight passed away in nineteen fourteen. So rather than Sears himself, the company's hugely successful for a into brick and mortar was really overseen by General Robert E. Wood. Now, he was

a military man. That might seem like a little bit of a random pick, but he'd actually been a procurement officer back in the Panama can Now projects, so he did have a lot of logistics background, another background that really helped him think about how the company would grow. There's actually a Storian here in Atlanta named Jerry Hancock, and he was on an episode of Stuff You Missed in History Class, which you guys should check out. It was a really really interesting episode. But he talks about

woods contribution in this way. He says, basically, what Wood did was he set up a territory system and divided the nation into five territories. He supplied those five territories by these ten distribution plants combined with retail stores. And if you go you can still see the remnants of these plants and how they fill orders with these huge conveyors, these big spiraling shoots. Each floor would get a ticket for whatever items, and they would have the merchandise divided

by floor and they would fill each order. And in the bottom would be this massive mail room where all the items would be collected and bundled together, and then literally on the back of the building was a railroad. They would put the items into the train and ship them out. I mean, it's an amazing process and it

sounds so ahead of its time, but full disclosure. Will and I actually work in one of Wood's old distribution plans here in Atlanta, and nowadays it's this mixed use facility, but you can still find traces of the building's industrial past here and it's a great place to work, with a great Raman restaurant downstairs. And so general, would we salute you? Okay, So I know we're getting into sears breaking bortar phase now, but if I'm honest, I'm not

really ready to leave the catalog behind just yet. So what do you say we take a break and then we can check out some of the craziest stuff to ever grace the Sears catalog. Sounds like a plan to me. You're listening to part time genius and we're talking about how Sears managed to build a retail empire on the foundation of mail order catalogs. All right, Mango, So what's one of the weirdest products you came across while rummaging

through your huge collection of old Sears catalogs? So this might be cheating, but I actually found a bunch of these really outrageous medicines, you know, the quackery that was all the rage in the nineteenth century America. All right, Well, first of all, if you preface something by saying this might be cheating, it most definitely is cheating. But I'm always game for some medical quackery. So so what did

you find out? So one of the absolute worst remedies has to be this one offered in the Spring catalog. It's called Brown's Vegetable Cure for female weakness. Which can you imagine trying to market something like that today? I can't imagine that would go over very well. No. Yeah, so I have no clue what was even in the stuff, But Sears sold it in big bottles for sixty cents of pop, and according to the writ up, they could cure everything from mental cramps to back pain to really

terrifying stuff. So here's some of the quotes it cures. Quote A dread from some impending evil, a craving for unnatural food, and sparks before the eyes. So if you have a craving for un natural food, you could just you know, have some of this. Brown's vegetable cure for female weakness takes care of that. This is so weird. I not remember hearing about any epidemics of sparks before the eyes. Such a strange thing. Yeah, so you might be right. And the Atlas like fifty symptoms that supposedly

treats another terrible product. This is uh also aimed at female customers. It was Dr Roses French arsenic complexion wafers. All right, Now, that just sounds made up. I know, I had to read it cause I couldn't remember, but I wish it was. It is not made up. These were toxic wafers that promised to rejuvenate quote even the coarsest and most repulsive skin. And you knew they were toxic too, because the very first words in the ad coffee are quote perfectly harmless and big bold, not suspicious

at all. I like how they draw attention to the fact that these aren't your typical round of the mill arsenic waivers, you know, like you might just find around the corner. I mean these these are French arsenic wafers. Yeah, you can poison yourself in style here. Yeah. So the ad tries to distract from the poison with all these references to the magical effects of the wafers and how

users will experience quote the wizard's touch. Sears must have been pretty confident because they recommended women start ordering them a dozen boxes at a time, which would have been twelve arsenic wave Wow. That is a lot of arsenic. But I mean, you do have to remember it was

French arsenic, so I'm sure it was fine. So all right. Well, while women seem to have the line share of these dubious remedies inflicted on them, men were also on the receiving end of a few of these, at least, so I found one example the fall of nineteen o two, Sears catalog advertised this belt and it sent electrical currents through a guy's growing in order to provide quote, the best, most reliable, most harmless yet powerful cheapest cure possible. So

that's obviously a ton of qualifiers. But what was this supposed to cure? Exactly? I mean, like whatever ailes you're growing, I guess. I mean, as usual with these medical ads, the right up is short on details and super long on this bizarre wording and these impossible claims, Like there was this promise to cure a week or deranged nervous system. So I found another It's called curtis Is Consumption Cure or the Triple C, and it just straight up promises

to cure tuberculosis. Wow. You know, Sears is pretty lucky that the FDC wasn't around back then, because I can't imagine any of this stuff would have flown now. So you know what the strangest part is. So, according to the company, Richard Sears wrote just about every line of coffee and the catalogs. But you're kidding, right, No, it's true. Alright, Well, there was this funny nineteen o two add for something called a toilet mask, so I'm impressed by his copywriters skill.

So the acid cured rubber is said to be coated with just healing agents. Wait, so is the assets supposed to improve your complexion like the arsenic wafers. Well, the acid is supposed to burn off things like freckles and liver spots. Sort of. I guess I don't know that i'd call acid burns and improvement over freckles though. Okay, so most of these are pretty disturbing products, so I'll go ahead and mention another that kind of fits the bill. Apparently.

In the series, catalog offered a set of illustrated lecture slides that depicted quote realistic views of the assassination of President McKinley. Oh god. Yeah. Customers could relive the national tragedy from the comfort of their living rooms using the handy stereo opticon slide projector, which was also available through series. That is horrible, I mean, I do feel I need to point out the series also sold some pretty wholesome things through the catalogs too, So, for example, the nineteen

thirties Sears advertised live baby chicks for sale. Each chick costs ten cents and the company actually guarantee they'd be delivered safe and alive or your money back. Well. I like this positive direction you're heading in, but I want to drag us back into the mud because I have to mention one of my favorite all time uses for the series catalog, which is that they provided the nation's toilet paper of choice in the late nineteenth century, so

that Sears was selling toilet paper by mail. No, the catalogs themselves used to be the go to choice when rural Americans had to you know, w yeah, I believe it or not. The paper pages of the catalog were actually a big step up for most people. For those who didn't have a lot of expendable paper on hand in the late eighteen hundreds, corn cops were the next best option, or maybe a muscle shell if you happen

to live near the coastline. I was trying to figure out which of those sounds worse, But I don't really even want to go down that path, so let's just not talk about that exactly, Which is why people were so happy when Sears started selling them giant free catalogs twice a year. And supposedly we looked at this a single catalog could meet the outhouse needs of a farm family for an entire season, So you can imagine just how upset folks were where the company switched from cushy,

absorbent newsprint to this unforgiving coded paper stalk. Apparently, Sears got quite a few angry letters from customers who would have gladly swapped the catalog's fancy color pictures for you know, returned to the soft stuff. I love that people wrote in letters about that. Well, we mentioned earlier that Sears catalogs were something of a teaching tool in the early

days of the company. It kind of you know, served as some of the public's first introduction to new technologies like the electric sewing machine, the disc graphophone, and the baby gate. Even and cars were actually another thing I was surprised to learn the catalog introduced to the public. So the company offered a tiny car. It was called um Sears Motor Buggy, and this was in the Fall

nine catalog. The Boddy. You could actually reach speeds of up to twenty five miles per hour and it costs just under four hundred dollars, which is about ten thousand dollars today. Wow, that's pretty pricey for Sears. I don't think I ever circled that one in the catalog. Well, speaking of expensive, I know this is kind of jumping ahead of it, but I saw this ad from Sears in nineteen eighty one. It was for the very first VCR model, and it cost one thousand, one hundred and

twenty five dollars. I mean, it's close to three thousand dollars today. I know it's expensive, but how else were you gonna watch Ernest Goes to Jail? That's actually I can remember. The first time I watched a movie on a VCR was we actually rented the VCR. I think it was from Blockbuster Videos so we could watch a movie at home. Well, there's at least one item from the early series catalogs that has only gone up in value over the years, and I do want to make

sure that we talk about it. But but first let's take a quick break. Okay, Mango, We've got one of our listeners on the line to play a quiz with us today. Stephen is joining us from the state of Washington. Welcome to part time genius. Stephen. How's it going now? You're the second person that we've spoken to this week. That's that works an overnight shift. Earlier in the week, we spoke to a truck driver who picks up milk from fifteen different Amish communities in the state of Maryland.

And you've been working the graveyard shift. So tell us a little bit about what you do. Well. I I operate some five excess seeing c machines, some of the largest in the world. Actually, um, and it's it's pretty awesome that you do a little of that, Mango, don't you the five axes? Yeah, but mostly on the weekends. Yeah, well that's great. Well, we're gonna be We're gonna be playing a quiz with you today. What quiz were you playing? Mango. We're gonna play a game called real Sears Catalog item

or something we made up? All right, So Steve and we are going to give you six quiz questions and you just have to tell us whether it's a real item we found that a Sears catalog or something we made up. You're ready to play, all right? So the first one is a mix at home after shave. It's for people who love old spice but would prefer to add some of their own spices. Was this a real Sears catalog item or something we made up? You know. I I believe that that was a real thing, and

that'd be pretty interesting. Actually, it wouldn't be pretty interesting. But this one actually isn't true. They should have had it. There were some far weirder things in there. That's okay, yea, yeah, that's right. That's right, all right. Question number two, I Love You Red twelve Bird Birdhouse. Was this something real and a serious catalog or something we made up? M hmmm, it's definitely. It has a hint of mango in there.

But I think I might have actually seen that at my grandma's neighbor's house, So I'm gonna go maybe real. It's absolutely right, He's right, it's uh, it's absolutely true. The ventilated cubicles were supposed to encourage a family of Martin's to join your own. All right, Okay, he's coming back. Or one out of two. Still got plenty of time for the big prize. Question number three, do it yourself home delivery kit for mothers who don't want to bother with a doctor until they need to. It's called a

do it yourself home delivery kit. Was this true or something we made up? Uh? You know, uh, it seems a little strange, but you know what, I think, you know, i'd buy that. I think that's realistic enough like that you'd buy it. Yeah, it's true. I see that it's true here mango. But what was what was in it? I know it actually came with rubber sheets, breastbinders, antiseptic soap, and olive oil. And I think it came with gloves as well, all stuff I keep in my backpack anyway,

So this is great. Alright, So Steven's two for three, alright, Question number four, castrating knives. Castrating knives as this true or something we made up? You know, I kind of don't want that to be true, but it kind of might be, but we'll see. You know, I think as long as it's not for humans, I think that's I believe that. Yeah, it's true. So at the time, the Sears catalog also sold farming equipment as well as things like baby chickens and donkeys, and the knives actually came

with one, two or three blades. Just to be as surprised as the listeners. Sometimes I like to come in without having seen the quizzes before, and this is one of those. When I saw castrating knives. I was like, all right, Mango, what kind of move? Alright, that's right, Stephen is three out of four. Let's see. The next one is a bald Eagle to pay kit fun for all ages, yarn assembly kit to make the most patriotic of birds better looking? Was this actually in a Sears

catalog or something we made up? You know? That's that? That sounds a little mango and he's got you figured out, man. Alright, alright, last one for the big prize. Here walk and Whear hair dryers. It's like drying your hair at a beauty salon, except on the go. A walk and Whear hair dryers. It's true or something we made up. You know, I'm not sure exactly how that would work, except well, I guess. I mean you could probably have a portable powered one.

I you know, I believe that. Yeah, let go, Yes, this is really true. It's true. Here. How does this work? Well, it was only so mobile, so it had this beehive it wearable hair dryer that came with an eight foot extension courts you could walk eight feet if you're on the go. That's great. Yeah, it actually reminds me one of our our neighbors used to have one of those electric or plug in weed whackers. Except the problem was it's like the edge of his yard was five ft

beyond where it's stretched. So we would watch him like get a running start with this thing and just like run all the way to the end and get that last five feet, then have to come back and plug it in and then go do it again. It was pretty great, all right. So yeah, uh yeah, so mango, how did Stephen do today? Uh? Stephen did great. He went five for six and as always, our guest wins an official part time Genius Certificate of Genius along with

a part Time Genius T shirts. So congratulations Stephen. Alright, Stephen, that was great. We're all wrapped up. Thanks again for your patients and for joining us. Yeah anytime. That was a great quiz man go you really got me good. It was fun. Thanks. Enjoy your rest, take care all right, bye bye you guys. Okay, well, so you're going to tell us about this old timey Sears product that's proven

to be such a big investment. Well maybe unsurprisingly it's actually real estate, or more specifically, their mail order houses, so Sears would actually send you a whole house. Uh, that's got to be this expensive shipping proposition, right, Well, I mean, not a whole house, but like all the pieces you need to build a house. Yeah, I mean it was nineteen o eight and the catalog included an ad that said, a hundred dollar set of building plans for free, let us be your architect without cost to you.

And so customers then right into request a free copy of a book called the Book of Modern Homes. And it was this separate catalog that listed the building materials and the plans for I think it was for forty four different house designs that ranged in ice from around seven hundred dollars to about four thousand dollars. Okay, so then what happens like a pile of lumber and stuff just shows up at your doorstep. Where wait, so if customers were building houses, where were they sending these houses

to in the first place. Well, a few weeks after an order was placed, you'd have two box cars full of about thirty thousand house pieces that would show up at the buyer's local train depot. Then the proud new homeowner would have to haul these pieces to the build side, you know, using a horse and wagon or maybe a flatbed truck. And so for that reason, most of these surviving Sears homes that you'll find them located within just

a couple of miles of these old railroad lines. Oh that makes sense, But building a house seems like so much work. And forget about trying to haul like thirty thousand pieces of something up in mountain. Why do you think all these houses are up abound? All right, So, once all the pieces of the house were laid out, it was time for the homeowner to crack open their leather bound instruction book and figure out how the heck

to put the thing together. And so there was a lot to figure out, with each kit containing twenty two islands of paint and varnish and and seven hundred and fifty pounds of nails. Not only that, there was about twenty thousand shingles there to use for the roof in siding, all of this and these giant kids. So there's gonna be one thick instruction book, right. Actually, I was trying to look into this because I would have thought the

same thing, And they were only seventy five pages. That's not a lot of toilet paper, that's not that's insane. So I can barely build my own idea. But wait, so you mentioned these surviving houses. How many of these were built? Well? According to Sears, the company sold between seventy and seventy five thousand mail order homes during the

thirty two years that it offered them. And getting into the housing business in the early twentieth century proved to be a really smart move for Sears, and the timing couldn't have been any better. He had more and more Americans that were, you know, trying to ditch the family farm in favor of this easier life in the suburbs, and the Sears catalog homes were an affordable way to

make that switch. So you know, today they're buying us Sears homes isn't nearly that affordable because there's this whole community of Sears home enthusiasts. They try to hunt these down and catalog these housing relics, and all that interest can actually drive the prices way up. But we saw someone we were looking into this that we're close to

a million dollars for some of these larger models. You know, it's not just a history that they're paying for, because these houses are really well built and and super durable. Because the timber they were using was this old growth would from back then, which you don't see used a whole lot now. In fact, you know, in fact, some enthusiasts estimate that as many as seventy Sears catalog houses

are still standing today. That's crazy and I'm still blown away that there's this like a house Hunters Sears edition. But these people just drive around and look for Sears models.

I mean, I think they're a little more methodical about it than that, but but but more or less, yeah, I mean, it's something the company actually encourages to The Seer's archive website even includes a running list of confirmed Sears house owners are willing to get in touch with fellow enthusiasts, and that way they can share notes or maybe meet up for a tour, and of course give each other heads up if somebody ever decides to sell

there's which I guess isn't that likely. It is cool that these d i y houses are still out there. I mean, judging by the frequent Sears store closings and the sale of its iconic house brands like Craftsman Tools, it does feel like the company isn't long for the world at this point. And it feels like these homes that the company help people build are now kind of

this monument to its cultural impact. Yeah, I mean it does make me wonder what else the company will leave behind, you know, besides this treasure trove of hilarious ads that we talked about. Well, I know one thing that will definitely be part of Sears legacy, and that's the NORAD Santa Tracker. You know how every year the news stations report on Santa's progress as he makes his way from the North Pole to houses all over the world. Yeah,

but I mean, what does that have to do with Sears. Well, back in one of Sears department stores placed an ad in a Colorado newspaper, and it encouraged kids to call Santa on his private line so that they could tell them what they'd like for Christmas. But something apparently went wrong along the way. I don't know whether the phone number in the ad was misprinted or people simply mistyaled, but at least one child wound up calling Santa and

getting the Continental Air Defense Command instead. And so the officer on duty who answered his name was Colonel Harry Shoop. He asked his staff to provide the collar and any future ones with the latest updates on Santa's progress. And a couple of years later, Nora took over the duty and they've been reporting on Santa's yearly flight ever since. That's pretty incredible that they got this serious agency to start a whole program devoted to tracking Santa Claus. I know,

and it's one area where Sears has Amazon, that's true. Well, speaking of Amazon, I do want to quickly go back to the idea that Sears and Amazon are, you know, kind of like mirror images of one another. So both companies rose the power by combining home delivery and an emerging technology. For Sears it was railroads and for Amazon

it was the Internet. But you know, both companies started with a single evergreen product of watches and books, and then of course they expanded into these product ranges to include everything under the sun. Well, there's also the fact that Sears made the transition to brick and more or retail after decades of success. Is this, you know, delivery based company, And now we see Amazon starting to do the same thing. It's interesting to see the future of

retail starts almost resemble its past. Yeah, and you know, if you think about Amazon, would probably be smart to keep an eye on those similarities, because while the two companies find themselves in drastically different situations today, it is worth noting that Amazon is only in its twenties at this point. Who knows where it will be a century from now? Yeah, and who knows where series will be

for that matter? All right, Well, even if the company is truly on its way out now, the market made on American culture will be with us for a long time to come, definitely. But for now, what do you say? We've partake in another beloved cultural institution. And that's the fact off? All right, let's do it, okay, So I'll kick us off. In the the CIA was trying to find a good way to compensate Vietnamese spies that were assisting them, and paper money really didn't do them any good,

and so they had to find another way. They then discovered that they could pay them with items available from the Sears catalog. I like that, So I feel like we need at least one fact about the Sears Tower in Chicago. And I know it's called the Willis Tower now, but I'm going to join the fifty people who signed a petition to try to have the name changed back Now it may not be the tallest building in the world anymore, but here's something you could still hang its

hat on the sky deck. Bathrooms at one three are actually the longest trip up from ground level of any other bathrooms in the Western Hemisphere. And that doesn't mean they're the highest in elevation, just the farthest from wherever the ground level is. That is pretty high up to get to a bathroom. Hopefully there are bathrooms on other floors before you get Now, that's it, alright. One of the things we didn't really talk about Sears selling on

its catalog was insurance. And I don't know if you remember this, but Sears actually founded All State back Yeah, I didn't remember that, and they'd offer auto insurance deals in the catalog. All the State is of course no longer art of Sears. They've been completely independent from them for I think it's a little over twenty years or so now. So one of those something else that used to be in the catalog that I don't think you'll find serious selling anymore opium. Really, Yeah, you're right, I

don't think they're selling that. Maybe that's gonna be their turnaround plan. We'll see. Well, just because the Sears catalog isn't what it used to be, there's obviously no shortage of catalog mailing going on these days, as we all experience at this time of year. So I was looking it up to see how many catalogs are mailed, and they'll be about eleven billion catalogs mailed out in the US alone this year. That's crazy. So just last months Heres announced to be bringing back the Wish Book this

holiday season. It hasn't been printed since two thousand eleven, and it's just a hundred twenty pager. It's only going to a select number of loyal customers. But it's apparently also available on the Sears app. Wait, what are you doing. I'm on the app store. I'm trying to download the Sears Sars had an app. I'm distracted. So I'm gonna give you the fact. I've congratulations, thank you, and and while Will staring at his phone, I want to thank all of you for listening today. Don't forget we love

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