Sears Wishbook!

[Sapphire-Light]

Love those catalogs 
 

[nemubones]

I used to cut the catalogs apart and give my parents the pages with the things I wanted for x-mas or such. 

[MorningGlorysParadise82]

Daughter and I STILL do this! I do it for reference/wants while daughter is purely wants LOL
And WOW! $4.99 in 1986 (which is when most my childhood herd was acquired) is now $10.69. :O

[doxiechic16]

Looking through the Sears Wishbook at my grandma's house and picking out the toys that I wanted was one of my favorite things to do before Christmas.   

[LittleSpiffy]

Daughter and I STILL do this! I do it for reference/wants while daughter is purely wants LOL
And WOW! $4.99 in 1986 (which is when most my childhood herd was acquired) is now $10.69. :O

I guess I should stop complaining about the prices of Fashion Styles   No wonder G4 brushables are so small!

[Loa]

OMG, I am going to have to spend hours on this!

[Taffeta]

I used to sit with it every year.  My mom tells me that, when I was about two, I would page through it, point at nearly every toy, and say "I hab dat...and I hab dat..." (translation: "I'll have that...")

Sometimes I'd want stuff that wasn't even a toy (like home appliances)

 

Post Merge: May 01, 2015, 10:22:33 AM

Oh wow, so Paradise Estate would cost about $160 now (I saw it in the Sears catalog of '86). 

Yes.  It was VERY expensive.

I remember getting the PE from Santa, who had pre-ordered at ToysRUs.

I sat in a corner of the living room, opened the box, pulled out the buildings (oh the excitement!), and none of the accessories/small parts were included :/  Whoops.

My mom told me that Santa, who couldn't make it back to the house, told her to take it back to TRU.  I remember standing in the customer service line...and lo and behold, there were multiple moms with PEs to return.  In the holiday rush, Hasbro really screwed up and didn't package the itty bitty parts.

Maybe that's what happened to Paradise over here. They clean forgot about her

/bitter >

I remember PE cost £60 here, which was a lot in 1980s money. I have a few Sears catalogues on a disc of catalogue images, but I haven't really looked at them a lot since I got them for the UK stuff.

Paradise Estate was one of the playsets I never got as a kid, too pricey, but I played with my friend's all the time, so it was sort of like having it...

Our equivalent here would be the Argos catalogue I think. I have spent a lot of time trawling through old copies and scans looking for images in much the same way in the last few months, thanks to the help of a very kind magazine enthusiast!

[Majesty]

Yep, I remember as a kid looking for the section on toys and saying outloud to myself "I want that, I want that". 

[Sukey]

Oh yes, I remember staring at those catalogs for hours. I believe there was a jc Penney' s catalog, too. Wow, some of those catalog covers are very familiar.

[achab1984]

WOW! This brings back so many memories!!! Man my parents got me a stable set and it was $30! I wish that I  would of know that, I would of taken better care of them all!

[QueenStarglow]

I used to sit with it every year.  My mom tells me that, when I was about two, I would page through it, point at nearly every toy, and say "I hab dat...and I hab dat..." (translation: "I'll have that...")

Sometimes I'd want stuff that wasn't even a toy (like home appliances)

 

Post Merge: May 01, 2015, 10:22:33 AM

Oh wow, so Paradise Estate would cost about $160 now (I saw it in the Sears catalog of '86). 

Yes.  It was VERY expensive.

I remember getting the PE from Santa, who had pre-ordered at ToysRUs.

I sat in a corner of the living room, opened the box, pulled out the buildings (oh the excitement!), and none of the accessories/small parts were included :/  Whoops.

My mom told me that Santa, who couldn't make it back to the house, told her to take it back to TRU.  I remember standing in the customer service line...and lo and behold, there were multiple moms with PEs to return.  In the holiday rush, Hasbro really screwed up and didn't package the itty bitty parts.

The staff at TRU were upset because the PEs were sold out and on backorder *everywhere*.  My mom asked me if I wanted to wait or get something else.   I decided on getting something different...and ended up with the entire line of Questron books.  So...yeah, 1 PE = an entire line of a different toy

This is adorable... and FASCINATING. I wish I had any memories at all of G1 in stores. These catalog images are amazing! Thank you LM!!

[otocolobus_manul]

I wasn't around for sears in particular, but i did similar things with target, tru and american girl catalogues. Oh, the memories... [dramatic state into distance]

[buddyboymama]

Yes, I remember looking through the Wishbook every year and circling my favorites.

[Baby Sugarberry]

Daughter and I STILL do this! I do it for reference/wants while daughter is purely wants LOL
And WOW! $4.99 in 1986 (which is when most my childhood herd was acquired) is now $10.69. :O

I guess I should stop complaining about the prices of Fashion Styles   No wonder G4 brushables are so small!

Probably the main reasons G4 has such poor quality control and smaller brushables - price hasn't changed but the value of those dollars has halved.  I can't imagine Hasbro would take that all out of their profit margin, if any.  5$ was my bi-monthly allowance back in the 80's.  G1's were far more of a luxury toy back then.

I remember going over the Consumer's Distributing catalog every time it arrived for new toys, these scans are nostalgic.

[hathorcat]

That website crops up every couple of years...and every time even though I am in the wrong country I love flicking through the pages and imaging being able to choose from the selection. I have a stack of old 80s Argos catalogues on disk (one of the UKs big toy retailers) - they are just so cool to look through.