Anyone remember mail order?

In '94 I got my first "office job". We didn't have internet but we had a fax machine. Sitting down and hand writing my items and info on the order form from the center of the catalog then faxing it to Cabelas was a modern marvel to me then.
 
I remember ordering items such as "Sea Monkeys" and switchblade "style" type knives from the back pages of Boy's Life magazine in the 60's! Along with

postage stamps from around the globe for my collection.(Even then I was a collector of something or other and already loved knives)

Got into some trouble with those since I did not grasp the concept of new stamps being sent "on approval" every month or so.

Ran up quite a bill which ultimately my dad had to settle and I had to work off! Still,the wait was always insufferable.

These days,when ordering from Amazon,I am amazed at the speed of the delivery. It does not pay to shop at brick and mortar stores for me.

Waiting for a knife or tool falls into it's own category but I sort of like the anticipation factor.What I am not a fan of is the disappointment factor which

sometimes rears it's ugly head when buying something based solely of photo's and descriptions.
 
I'm only 29 and I remember the 4-6+ week wait on mail order. I don't complain now when I have a 5-7 business day shipment. :)
 
Back when I was a kid in my early teens (60s) I used to order stuff all the time from the old Herter's inc.
I was an avid outdoorsman, and liked making my own fishing lures, tying flies, and all that. There was essentially NO commercial outlets for these things back then where I lived.
No "Bass Pro" or even Walmart...
So, Herters sufficed for all. They shipped out a huge, colorfully-written (some might say downright quirky) catalogue a couple of times a year, much like those old vintage Sears catalogues you see re-printed.
Long, glowing descriptions of every item, and usually some little story or bit of history (likely invented...) to go with it.

"Back in 1897, when Jaques Carpentier use to go up to Great Bear Lake for lake trout, he liked to take along a handful of these famous, hand-made spoons he'd brought with him from Finland. These proved so effective for lake trout that to this very day we have them hammered out by Norwegian blacksmiths using only hand tools...."

Really... Every single item in the catalogue was like that. Could keep you amused for hours. I loved to save up my money and send off for an big order of hooks and feathers and fur and exotic threads and floss...
All of which had to be painstakingly written out on the big order form....
 
When you got on a mailing list , it was a surprise when a catalog you never got before would show up in the mail box.
 
Slightly off topic but back then 440C was a "Super Steel" ATS-34 a thing to dream of and some of the major knife companies boasted that they used 440a.

Thinking back to the old knife magazines and catalogs and that's just 25 years ago...
 
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Catalogues can still be a good source of information.
Once in a while at work, where we don't have access to the internet out on the floor, I find myself looking thru one for technical data on a specific tool or cutting parameter. Believe it or not, the young apprentices don't know how to do that, they always ask us old timers.
 
cncpro11 said:
Catalogues can still be a good source of information.
Once in a while at work, where we don't have access to the internet out on the floor, I find myself looking thru one for technical data on a specific tool or cutting parameter. Believe it or not, the young apprentices don't know how to do that, they always ask us old timers.
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I'm with you on that. I try and save all the old catalogues. Believe it or not sometimes I can find info quicker that way. Like what year a knife came out or what the spec's were.

they're a nice reference to have. kinda like old photo albums. Remember those? No digital pic's saved on the computer. Prints and negatives. We're like, old.....Lol...
 
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nozyk said:
I remember ordering items such as "Sea Monkeys" and switchblade "style" type knives from the back pages of Boy's Life magazine in the 60's! Along with postage stamps from around the globe for my collection.
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I see we have another Johnson Smith & Co. fan. I used to order joy buzzers and similar crap from them, always the cheapest stuff: my biggest buy was a Big Bang carbide canon (the smallest one). God I loved their catalogs but they never had one as good as the Mad parody cover. It was No. 21, March 1955, when Mad was still in comic book format and still accepted ads. There was a real Johnson Smith ad in the same issue!

mad021printid.jpg
 
pbcg said:
... kinda like old photo albums. Remember those? No digital pic's saved on the computer. Prints and negatives. We're like, old.....Lol...
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Anyone else remember when you had to take a picture of the tv screen with your video game score? Then you had to wait for your parents to drop the film off at the drug store to be developed...then sending the picture off to Activision in order to get your Pitfall Harry "Explorers Club" Patch?

Pitfall.jpg
 
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Not only knives but before the mid-sixties you could also order almost any type of gun you wanted from a catalog or magazine advertisement. The only requirement was to state that you were of legal age. My dad got several of his guns that way.
 
Reading through that Johnson & Smith ad... I remember those well and I think I wanted every single one of those items at one time or another.....
 
killgar said:
You kids today, you don't know how good you've got it :D.
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Yup, we're pretty spoiled. I do indeed remember "true" mail order... my first kit knife projects came from a place called Atlanta Cutlery. I'm pretty sure I found their ad in a mid-80's SOF magazine :) I still have one of those knives, and the company is still around.

The X-ray specs, Charles Atlas workout routine and sea-monkey ads in comic books... funny stuff.
 
cncpro11 said:
Real midget gun, shoots blanks. $1.95
I'd wait 6-8 weeks for that!
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Layout, typography, most of the artwork and even some of the spelling mistakes were borrowed from Johnson Smith & Co., but the ad copy was pure Mad like the description of the "REAL MIDGET GUN":

Loud as 22 cal. blank (louder than cap gun). Easily concealed. Doesn't make a bulge under your coat like those big old pistols. You can walk around with this midget gun ANYWHERE! Banks, the U.S. Mint: ANYWHERE! Comes in three styles. DUELLING STYLE, yours .... $1.95
WESTERN STYLE, soft metal on top so's you can cut notches .... $2.45
DUELLING STYLE, his. Matches the other duelling style one, only this one has a sealed muzzle and doesn't fire. You'll win your duels every time! 25¢
Imagine his surprise when while he's duelling you, his pistol backfires in his face. Hours of entertainment here! Gun uses blank cartridges but, HAW. It shouldn't be too hard to find the real thing. Cartridges not mailable. Must go by express. Pay express charge when package is delivered. Or better still, by opening package while expressman is still there, you can make HIM pay YOU ............
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It still makes me grin like when I was eight years old.
 
Johnson Smith is still in business and still has most of the old stuff for sale. Atlanta Cutlery was bought out by Windlass; the knives and swords still look authentic but they aren't very functional.
 
I refused to buy anything else via mail order after I found out I couldn't see girls naked.

xray+specs.jpg
 
JPD1998 said:
Smoky Mountain KW and AG Russell were the 1st companies where I would actually fill out an order form. Then you'd mail the form with a check. There were others, like Edgeco.
When SMKW started to accept credit cards and faxed orders, some of the wait time was cut.
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I've Mail-Ordered from all 3 of these. Yeah, 3 weeks minimum even back in the 90's.

As a child, my mother used to order stuff through "Fingerhut" catalogues. I'd ordered marbles, tiny solar flashlights, Swiss Army "Style" knives, and other stuff from their 88 cent pages. I know my brothers and I drove our mother crazy asking when it was going to get here.
 
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