It just occurred to me that the very first credit I obtained in my own name was from Sears. I lived in Petaluma, Calif. and there was a Sears catalog store downtown. It was really just a store front, maybe 600 sqaure ft in size, Anyway, they had a 9” Silvertone Color TV on display. I was 19 yrs.old, had just moved out on my own and was borrowing my Mom’s B/W 6” Sony TV. I bought that color TV off the showroom floor, I believe it was $199.00, and my paymt. was $7.50 a mo., which I made in person every mo. at the store. I remember feeling very proud that I was able to get credit on my own, without a cosigner.
After about 9 mo. I next bought a portable Sears Stereo, one of those kind popular in the early 70’s with the turntable and tuner combined and separate speakers. With that acquisition my paymt. increased to $12.00 per mo. I used that stereo for almost 10 years before it gave up the ghost, when the turntable stopped working.
If it hadn’t been for that Sears Catalog store who knows how long it would have been before I started building a credit history on my own.
I also bought my very first new furniture at Sears. They were a godsend for a young man starting out in the early 70’s. Back then, credit wasn’t handed out as freely to young people as it is now.
It’s too bad that Sears is going under. For generations it was the mainstay for most families household purchases, because of the easy credit, good quality, dependable merchandise and the ubiquitous Sears catalog, for those who lived in remote areas. Mail order buying was equivalent to online shopping today. You could buy just about anything from the Sears Catalog, they even sold mailorder houses in the 20’s and early 30’s, that were delivered unassembled to the train station and the buyer would build the home on their own lot. These Sears homes came fully equipped with everything, plumbing, wiring, flooring, siding, roofing, paint, everything. And in the 50’s for brief time Sears sold an automobile from their catalog. The Sears and Roebuck catalog was the Amazon of the late 19th century and 20th century, until PC’s became common place household appliances.
Eddie
