Anyone Into Vintage Appliance Catalogs?

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I tried a 14.95 offer on one of the 104.95 catalogs and it was rejected immediately. Perhaps the seller just wants to gloat about what he has...

I used to love these Sweets catalog files, an architect friend used to save them for me when he could get them. The Sears appliance"pageant" was always interesting because the appliances were typically just a bit different in the contractor sales than the stores. And a bit uglier, too.
 
Make An Offer

IIRC most if not all these auctions are by the same seller and he has the "Make An Offer" option enabled.

Considering many of these auctions are going end soon with not as much as a nibble, you've got nothing to loose by submitting an offer.
 
Rejected Offer

As one of my gay friends would shout out at a rejected suitor as we were leaving a club "you can die with your secret honey"! *LOL*

These catalogs are pretty and contain some useful information but that is far as it goes. The market for them is quite slim which explains why none of them have sold. Nearly or over one hundred dollars for these things is simply dumb. The entire lot might be worth a bit under that amount for a serious collector, but otherwise these things are destined to sit sitting becoming food for roaches and mice.
 
I'd love to have all those wonderful brochures, but as a gay friend of mine used to say,"Are you f*cking kidding me?!" Launderess and gansky1 nailed it: Someone just wants to gloat.[this post was last edited: 5/5/2013-22:13]
 
I too, have tried submitting offers for a couple of these. I'm loated to pay more than $20 for any of them; they were all rejected immediately. I wish the seller luck.
 
Neat Stuff.
I would love to see the Preway Catalog.
You would think at these prices Free Shipping would have been standard.
 
I actually have several of these catalogs which I got for free. I can't imagine that they would command such a high resale. But to each his own.
 
Why can't this guy just do the right thing. i.e. scan and upload everything to the internet for the benefit of all mankind instead of trying to make a fast buck...? (which may not be all that fast at those prices).
 
Catalogs

When I created my last thread this is what I was trying to describe "the seller on eBay that has all these catalogs". I wanted to share with everyone all the catalogs and their prices too lol. I don't think there is an option to upload a link to share like laundress did on an iPhone but idk how to share a link on here on computer. But anyway I want the 1983 ge catalog that the seller has and I sent him a long message trying to describe to him that I would love to have a couple of his catalogs but I can't afford them and could I have a pic of the washer dryer section on a couple, of course a lot of ppl couldn't afford to pay that price for these things and want as many as I do, being nice and the only thing he come back with was NO. I didn't know it at the time that I sent the message but some of the auctions do have an option to make offer and the 1983 ge catalog that I want has that option, well about 4 days ago I decided to make an offer and a message popped up and said "this seller is currently not accepting bids or offers from u at this time"- he blocked me bc of the nice and pleading message I sent him!!! He just wants to show off what he's got.
 
Cue Blood-Curdling Screams:

If that's your experience Doug, I am horrified. You sent a caring and careful e-mail, got a snobbish reply and were blocked from making offers. This seller is not here to sell catalogs, like everyone else has said, he is listing it to show off atop his high chair, where no-one can reach. 

 

These are not priced reasonably for what you get. Robert provides for us lovely detailed (and lengthy) catalogs/brochures for 1/100 of the price. Perhaps the seller should see here, and lets hope that Robert doesn't get any particular ideas from this eBay auction (Lol - Pun intended, No offence, though). 
 
Automatic Declined Offers

There are two ways sellers can use the eBay "Offer" system.

With the first all offers are submitted and the seller can decide to either decline or accept. On the second the decision is made automatically by eBay's system based upon the lowest "offer" seller has input he is willing to accept.

That this person would ban another eBay member from his auctions because they contacted him about perhaps his lowering prices is just plain mean. This man can die with his catalogs far as one is concerned. Anyone who acts like that is not a nice human being.

A quick peep through the catalog section on eBay shows these things go for about the mid to high twenties at best for BIN prices. Even then we're speaking about huge binders not small booklets of a few pages. Those on average are listed at around $3-$7.
 
Like someone else stated, I have more than a few of these myself. They were collected over the years as Sweets Catalogs were discarded. In other words, they were free. If they were worth the price this seller is asking I could freakin' retire!!!

But the truth is that they're not. And this guy won't sell any of them.

lawrence
 
I've got an idea..heh heh.

Somebody, (not me) purchase a few selected catalogs, then make an unholy stinking dispute with Paypal, in the meantime make color copies/scans of the items, then mail them back by the slowest means possible, cap it all off with mulitiple negative feedbacks.
 
I was just looking at the 1979 GE catalogue and saw that there was the undersink dishwasher model that had the cycle knob on the cabinet instead of the control panel like the 70's Maytags. we lived in a townhouse that had that GE model. in fact all the appliances were original and they all were GE that is until the Hitachi made portable washer broke down and was replaced, eventually the dryer was replaced too. The dishwasher, Range, and Fridge stayed. The only problem we had with the dishwasher was a large amount of foam leaked from underneath the machine. Too much suds in my opinion. It only happened once.
 
Exactly

This seller is very rude and doesn't deserve to sell not 1 of these things. Only out to rip ppl off like everyone else said the catalogs r not worth that kind of money. That is such a good idea digapony lol that's something I would think of. There's only 1 thing, I would be worried the seller wouldn't take the catalogs back being the a$$ he is. If the auctions even say there is a return or no refunds!??
 
Well....

He sounds like most big shots, they want to get rich off one item, I would love to find more stuff like this, but I wouldnt pay those prices if I was Donald Trump!
 
For those prices I am not into appliance catalogs.Maybe 100 bucks for the whole lot might be a REASONABLE price.But not $104 each.And are these bench manual catalogs or just flyers mailed to customers?Not clear as to what we are getting for these luxuary prices.
 
Very good point, Rex. Sometimes these were full-line catalogs with nice pictures, displays and every model available listed with specs. Sometimes, they were simply a few B&W pics and lists of models and feature charts. Hard to know what you're going to get. I recognize a few of the GE, Hotpoint and Frigidaire catalogs that I'd requested as a kid and they would be full-line catalogs, but I remember some of the ones I'd see in Sweets and elsewhere that were just four-page lists of models.
 
Most of the catalogs in this collection are probably in the 50-page-plus category. The GE catalogs were pretty much full-line offerings (although as has been discussed here before, GE apparently offered a lot more variety than they publlished). It wasn't until maybe 1990-ish that the manufacturers began to cut way back on what they printed - as the print-media-industry began to feel the effects of the internet. That's when the Sweets volumes shrank considerably!

In addition to wondering what prompted the seller to expect such extravagent prices for these offereings, I have to wonder if he/she is one of us.....

lawrence
 
These are absolutely ridiculous prices.

Wow, that is too much. My favorite is the Ronson Foodmatic Catalog for $49.99, which I also have and its been loaded into Automatic Ephemera and now it's $1.99 for a high-resolution digital file which is clear as the original and takes up no space except on your iPad.

Same with the KitchenAid and 1970 GE brochure, good luck with that $50 and $104 price.
 
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