Home Posts tagged "Schwinn"

Tag: Schwinn

Products Then and Now … From 1960 to 2017

I recently found a 1960 wholesale catalog from First Distributors at 4204 W. North Ave, Chicago at a garage sale. I have no idea how long they were in business, but I became fascinated with the pictures and ads in this quaint catalog. They sold practically everything and also had a showroom! It’s hard to tell from the catalog whether anyone could buy wholesale from First Distributors or whether it was intended for retailers – this is not explicitly stated. The catalog is reminiscent of Sears and Wards vintage catalogs, with less clothing and the added feature of wholesale pricing. They sold everything from lawn mowers to patio furniture, sporting goods to humidifiers, toys to scuba equipment, tires, jewelry, vitamins specifically for teenagers, lingerie, clothes, and yes, even the kitchen sink. In this catalog, they offered two nifty all-in-one refrigerator, range, and sink models – a great solution for tiny apartments! I thought it would be intriguing to select a few products from this catalog, circa 1960 and see how they compare to modern products, circa 2017.

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Toys from the 1960s-1970s That Would Never Pass Modern Safety Tests … or Are Just Too Lame for Today’s Kids

With Christmas just around the corner and millions of kids eagerly waiting to open presents, I thought it was a good time to look back at a few toys of the past. Considering the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) didn’t exist before 1972, late Baby Boomers got away with playing with a lot of toys in the 1960s-early 1970s that would never pass muster today. Some of these were toys I blogged about when I was waxing nostalgic for the Sears Wish Book of my youth. Kids who have been playing computer games since they were in diapers, with all sorts of other high-tech toys at their disposal, would likely turn up their noses at a few beloved toys of yesteryear. Bicycles Without a doubt, the most dangerous toy of the 1960s-1970s was not a toy at all, but a bicycle. And biking continues to be a dangerous activity, but at least far more kids are wearing helmets now. Still, according to the CPSC, there were 276,425 children 18 and younger treated for bicycle-related injuries at U.S. hospital emergency rooms in 2012. I cannot remember anyone wearing a bike helmet when I was a kid and somehow my friends and I all escaped with minor injuries. It’s not that we were more resilient or had harder skulls – it’s because no injury surveillance systems were in place monitoring these injuries. Deadly biking accidents weren’t publicized and if any prevention organizations existed, they certainly weren’t as active as they are today. My friend Myra once fell off her bike and suffered some bad scrapes on both knees and an elbow. And I had an incident with younger boys in the neighborhood chasing me on their bikes and trying to knock me off mine. I was wearing flip-flops (I know, really brilliant), and when one of…

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The Way Toys Were – Ode to the Sears Wish Book

Every fall, just after Halloween, I begged my mom to order the Sears Wish Book. I spent hours poring over the book, making a list of the toys I wanted most. My parents always let me pick out one really impressive toy for the first night of Hanukkah and a few small “stocking stuffer” gifts for the other seven nights. My kid sister Janet and I would fight over the book and had to take turns, until my mom realized she should order two copies. Yet even with eight nights of celebration, I suffered from Christian envy and was a bit jealous of my best friend Joan’s beautiful large Christmas tree with colorfully wrapped gifts underneath. I fondly recall when her parents graciously invited me over for a few hours before their Christmas eve celebration. Thus, via a scaled-down version, I  experienced the joy of Christmas along with my potato latkes, chocolate gelt, picking hardened dripped wax off the menorah, and my eight gifts. The best of both worlds, you might say.

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