Lets make furniture out of old 55Gal drums!
Anyone remember seeing these in the JC Penny furniture department ?
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whirlcool
Well-known member
I just love how the coffee table has only two legs per barrel.
This is one of those things that just doesn't age well. But people liked it at the time.
This is one of those things that just doesn't age well. But people liked it at the time.
I remember seeing this in their catalog...
<span style="font-size: medium;">It was revolting then, it's revolting now. The biggest JC Penney in the chain (in San Juan, Puerto Rico) has a rather extensive furniture department located on the fourth floor. </span>
<span style="font-size: medium;">It was revolting then, it's revolting now. The biggest JC Penney in the chain (in San Juan, Puerto Rico) has a rather extensive furniture department located on the fourth floor. </span>
Penney's started with a furniture department as they moved into the malls in the very early 60s. They stopped selling hard goods in about 1984 or so as they moved (back) into their clothing/fashion business. There's some good information in Pleasant Family Shopping blog. Interestingly, they didn't get into the catalog business until the early 60s also...they never though set up a catalog which had everything (furniture/appliances) like Sears/Wards. They were the first computerized catalog house so were unusually efficient. Believe that the catalogue business they bought (General Merchandise from Milwaukee) was also the precursor to their Treasure Island stores which were apparently very early hypermarkets (think Meijer or Fred Meyer or Smitty's). Apparently they were pretty well-liked in the areas where they operated (Milwaukee and Atlanta primarily), but they weren't very expandable (which makes sense as several of the early discounters with limited locations in a city--think Korvette's) struggled and closed. In Atlanta several of the locations became early Home Depots.
Thanks, Jamie, for the answers. I did not know that Treasure Island had such limited locations. About the same time that TI stores opened, we, in Atlanta, got Richway Stores, a gift from Rich's Department Store. The buildings were very distinctive with huge angled projections from the roof for skylights. They were painted with LOUD early 70s color combinations like pink/orange & lemon/lime and, like TI, had grocery operations. I guess both were casualties of the 70s recession. It was sad after they, too, closed because when you drove by one, even from a distance, you knew it was a dead Richway because of the architecture and colors. The parking lots for stores in both chains were generally very full. I guess both were casualties of the 70s recession. Richway tried something very radical at the time: every item, excpet in the grocery part, was given a bar code sticker for the price and the checkout registers used bar code scanners to read prices. The glue was very hard to remove from hard goods, especially from plastic items. What made this early attempt so bad was that, instead of being able to program sale prices into the computer, every tag on every sale item had to be changed at the start and end of the sale and, for some reason, the computer could not count what had been sold or if so, the count had to be verified, so we had to count stock inventory at the beginning and end of the sale as well as change the price stickers. I heard it said that the store went broke because so much merchandise left the stores without being paid for or sold for the wrong price due to errors in the computer and the checkout system. That summer I spent at Richway is one I won't forget for a long time.
polkanut
Well-known member
Pete,
Your Wheel of Furtune/Let's Make a Deal comment almost made me spew my coffee!!! Too funny. As for Treasure Island in the Milwaukee area that explains alot. When my dads aunt & uncle lived in Oak Creek there was a location near their home. That store, along with their catalog return outlet, were side-by-side. You could find some really great deals, and also alot of stuff that should have just gone into the dumpster behind the store. One year when we happened to be visiting them I got all of my school clothes there. Mom liked shopping there because she got a 20% discount rather than the usual 15% for JC Penney employees. And if items were already marked down, the savings were even better. It was great not having the same clothes as my schoolmates.
Your Wheel of Furtune/Let's Make a Deal comment almost made me spew my coffee!!! Too funny. As for Treasure Island in the Milwaukee area that explains alot. When my dads aunt & uncle lived in Oak Creek there was a location near their home. That store, along with their catalog return outlet, were side-by-side. You could find some really great deals, and also alot of stuff that should have just gone into the dumpster behind the store. One year when we happened to be visiting them I got all of my school clothes there. Mom liked shopping there because she got a 20% discount rather than the usual 15% for JC Penney employees. And if items were already marked down, the savings were even better. It was great not having the same clothes as my schoolmates.
I'm afraid you are mistaken Jamiel...
<span style="font-size: medium;">JCPenneys still sells "hard goods" in many of their stores. Along with their flagship store in San Juan as mentioned above, Penney's at Queens Plaza Mall in NYC also sells "hard goods" among others. Look it up in their website. </span>
<span style="font-size: medium;">JCPenneys still sells "hard goods" in many of their stores. Along with their flagship store in San Juan as mentioned above, Penney's at Queens Plaza Mall in NYC also sells "hard goods" among others. Look it up in their website. </span>
Jamie, why do you say that Treasure Island stores were not very expandable? Do you mean into new territories? I thought there were JC Penney stores all over. Did they not share resources with TI?
The only time I saw appliances at Penney's was my one visit to the store in Northlake Mall at Lavista Rd and I 285 in suburban Atlanta.
I will admit to not having much experience with Penney's, mostly with the store in the Laurel, MD mall which closed long ago and now the mall is being torn down, but it was mostly a soft goods store with clothes, linens and shoes along with a teeny tiny housewares dept about the size of a baker's rack. Penney's had good men's underwear & socks in the late 80s thru the early 90s.
The only time I saw appliances at Penney's was my one visit to the store in Northlake Mall at Lavista Rd and I 285 in suburban Atlanta.
I will admit to not having much experience with Penney's, mostly with the store in the Laurel, MD mall which closed long ago and now the mall is being torn down, but it was mostly a soft goods store with clothes, linens and shoes along with a teeny tiny housewares dept about the size of a baker's rack. Penney's had good men's underwear & socks in the late 80s thru the early 90s.
whirlcool
Well-known member
That's exactly like our local JCP is here. It's a large two story store in a mall and they carry men, women's and children's clothing, linens, shoes and lamps. The section for clothing is about 75% of the story.
Back in the 70's we used to shop Penny's quite a bit, but I think around 1983 or so we stopped going there. I forgot the reason why. But last year we did go into JCP and were pleasantly surprised at the selection and prices. When we were growing up all of our underwear came from JCP. It really wore well. Last year we went to buy some more and I was shocked to see that JCP doesn't carry their own brand anymore. They now carry "major brand" underwear.
When I was a kid the JCP we used to shop at sold kitchen appliances and washers and dryers. In another section of the store they sold portable stereos. The kind with the cart and separate speakers. But one of my aunt's bought a Penncrest console stereo so she must have bought it there, even though I never saw one there. Wasn't it around the mid 80's that JCP stopped selling appliances?
I know Foley's in Houston used to sell those and television sets too, but one day they were all gone around the same time.
Back in the 70's we used to shop Penny's quite a bit, but I think around 1983 or so we stopped going there. I forgot the reason why. But last year we did go into JCP and were pleasantly surprised at the selection and prices. When we were growing up all of our underwear came from JCP. It really wore well. Last year we went to buy some more and I was shocked to see that JCP doesn't carry their own brand anymore. They now carry "major brand" underwear.
When I was a kid the JCP we used to shop at sold kitchen appliances and washers and dryers. In another section of the store they sold portable stereos. The kind with the cart and separate speakers. But one of my aunt's bought a Penncrest console stereo so she must have bought it there, even though I never saw one there. Wasn't it around the mid 80's that JCP stopped selling appliances?
I know Foley's in Houston used to sell those and television sets too, but one day they were all gone around the same time.
norgeway
Well-known member
Here in NC
The Winston-salem Penney's went out of the furniture and white goods in the mid to later 80's, in Greensboro, NC the store was remodled in the early 90's and furniture was kept in that store, however I don't know if it is still there or not. by Donald not Hans
The Winston-salem Penney's went out of the furniture and white goods in the mid to later 80's, in Greensboro, NC the store was remodled in the early 90's and furniture was kept in that store, however I don't know if it is still there or not. by Donald not Hans
retromania
Well-known member
Yuck!
I said YUCK!
I said YUCK!
By hard goods I was meaning appliances, tires/batteries, tools, paint, sporting goods....the kind of stuff men shop for (as opposed to fashion lol). Penney got out of that business in the early-to-mid-80s. There was a cute story on CBS Sunday Morning a few years ago about a woman who bought a 1964 Comet Caliente and had driven it 750,000 miles. She bought an exhaust system from Midas and The JC Penney Battery...both of which warranted for the life of your automobile. She was on the spot talking about getting 5 new exhaust systems and 4 batteries...Firestone stood behind the Penney warranty. Penney never put hard goods in their original "soft goods" main-street stores...only in the mall stores into which they expanded in the very late 50s through the 60s and 70s; and they did not set up the catalog business to handle those types of merchandise (where both Sears and Wards sold their full lines through the catalogue. Penney had pretty good coverage nationwide although there were some odd gaps...they only had 2 stores in metro Cincinnati, for instance. (Sears was nationwide, of course; and Wards had wider coverage than Penneys but also had gaps--for instance stores in Kansas City and Chicago but never in St. Louis; stores in Toledo and Akron but not really anywhere else in Ohio)
Regarding Richway...the locations were very noticeable in Atlanta...those skylights were visible a mile away. There's an interesting thread on Pleasant Family Shopping and on Groceteria about Treasure Island. Apparently there was a third company (Hinky Dinky from Omaha, NE) which was a supermarket chain throughout Nebraska and Iowa which got into the business of running leased supermarket departments in the early 60s in stores like Treasure Island and some of the membership stores (GEM, for instance). Apparently they figured out a way to selectively get into that business in certain cities where the competitive structure was ripe for a low-overhead type operation. They sold off that business in the early 70s to JC Penney, which incorporated it into Treasure Island and ultimately folded it later in the decade. Toward the late 70s that type of food operation was transitioned to local chains operating on behalf of the discounter (KMart Foods, for instance).
We did not have Wards in the Atlanta area, but they had them in Florida. I don't know if Wards had stores anywhere in GA.
I think I remember hearing daddy say that the Richway grocery operation was related to CUB foods, but I'm not certain. Poor Richway.
Up here in the 70s and into the early 80s, we had GEMCO (gov't employees membership coop or something similar) which became MEMCO (membership coop) that had pretty good grocery stores in them. The also sold auto stuff like tires and gas and appliances. I almost bought a WP dw there before KA came out with the 18 series. They also sold Frigidaire which is where I saw that horrible, what was it 1980 or 1981, washer that was a Westinghouse inside.
Speaking of awful stores to be dragged into as a kid, does anyone remember Robert Hall Clothing Stores? We were someplace traveling with daddy in the summer and there was one of these things near the motel, so mom made us walk up to the store with her so she could look through racks of crap. I think I found the only chair in the place; don't remember what my brother did, but I had to sit there while she looked at stuff. I could not imagine a store without housewares, at least, even if it did not have appliances, but it was just clothes in a bleak setting.
I think I remember hearing daddy say that the Richway grocery operation was related to CUB foods, but I'm not certain. Poor Richway.
Up here in the 70s and into the early 80s, we had GEMCO (gov't employees membership coop or something similar) which became MEMCO (membership coop) that had pretty good grocery stores in them. The also sold auto stuff like tires and gas and appliances. I almost bought a WP dw there before KA came out with the 18 series. They also sold Frigidaire which is where I saw that horrible, what was it 1980 or 1981, washer that was a Westinghouse inside.
Speaking of awful stores to be dragged into as a kid, does anyone remember Robert Hall Clothing Stores? We were someplace traveling with daddy in the summer and there was one of these things near the motel, so mom made us walk up to the store with her so she could look through racks of crap. I think I found the only chair in the place; don't remember what my brother did, but I had to sit there while she looked at stuff. I could not imagine a store without housewares, at least, even if it did not have appliances, but it was just clothes in a bleak setting.
I Googled Richway Stores Atlanta
and found a lot of sad history. Here is what happened to the one we used to "patronize."
The former store in Decatur, GA at 4000 Covington Highway was converted to a non-denominational church, Total Grace Christian Center.
Glad to see it's still a place of commerce.
and found a lot of sad history. Here is what happened to the one we used to "patronize."
The former store in Decatur, GA at 4000 Covington Highway was converted to a non-denominational church, Total Grace Christian Center.
Glad to see it's still a place of commerce.
JCPenney has long been a mall anchor-store in the larger "shopping-city" next to the small berg of my origin. The current store at the "new" mall has always been clothing and linens & housewares, no hardgoods.
The first hi-fi system we (I) had in the mid-1970s was a set of MCS components from JCP. I still have the turntable.
These are NOT my pictures, found them online.
"But people liked it at the time"
Yes, those with VERY poor taste.
Yes, those with VERY poor taste.
Robert Hall
Robert Hall Commercials ..
Harry
Robert Hall Commercials ..
Harry
