@“common sense answer” I think the Sears Elgin outboard motors were made by West Bend. Montgomery Wards Sea King outboards were made by Evinrude.
I Had To Dig Out A 6-Digit “Pocket Or Purse” Commodore Minuteman 6X (Made In U.S.A.) “Electronic Calculator” (LED) That I Bought At Sears February 23, 1975. It’s Still In A Little Plastic Sleeve In The Original Box With The Instruction Manual.
The hand written receipt shows I paid $19.95 (in big 1975 dollars). It does addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division!
The manual gives example of each operation. To perform a calculation on two numbers, you only have to hit [C], enter the first number, then hit [ENTER], next input another number and hit [+=], [-=], [x=], etcetera. Like magic the answer appears in tiny glowing red digits!
I used that calculator to compute gas mileage in my 71 Super Beetle and for other automotive math.
CSA
Speaking of Allstate and Puch, accrosss the heartland motorcycle dealers were few and far between but Sears catalog order stores were in towns of 10,000 and Allstate mopeds, scooters and motorcycles were very common. Harley Davidson bought and rebranded a 250 bike from Europe to cash in on the demand for smaller bikes that the Allstate models had developed. Of course Honda took over that market with their “groovy little motorbikes.”
When I worked for Outboard Marine in the sixties, we supplied both Elto (Evinrude Light Twin Outboard) and the Johnson brands under a Sears name. Only the shrouds with the names were different. A Johnson and Evinrude were identical under the skin.
@Docnick You are right for the 1960s about Evinrude manufacturing Sears outboard motors. I am stuck in the 1950s when West Bend made outboards and supplied Sears with outboards. The West Bend and Sears Elvin were identical except for nameplate.
My dad bought a used Evinrude Lightwin 3 for $75 back in 1958. That motor still runs well. My brother has the motor now.
I remember when a heater for the car was an option. Many people bought new cars without a heater and had them installed by Sears. The same was true with car radios.
One car accessory Sears sold was a “road sander”. The units mounted in the trink–one on each side ahead of the rear wheels. If you needed traction, you pushed a button and a special grit was dispensed in front of the rear wheels. Of course, cars back then were rear wheel drives. I saw these road sanders in Sears catalogues in the early 1950s. I never actually saw one and the road sanders disappeared from later catalogues. I think they would be useful. The railroad locomotives use a,similar system to gain traction.
Going down memory lane. I remember hearing about the road sanders but never actually saw one. This was prior to the interstates and salt and a lot of sanding trucks-at least around here. I remember heading to the big city on ice on the two lane highway in our 54 Ford with my mom driving. No seat belts and no sanding truck in sight. Maybe that’s why I like to stay home in the winter.
In 1974, once a month I needed to allocate costs to departments. I did it by fingers and pencils and 13 column ledger sheets for a couple months. Then I would borrow a 10 key or calculator from the accounting department. Finally I just went and bought my own calculator. A small Texas Instrument one that I paid $70 for. That was a lot of money. About the same as rent or car payment.
Going down memory lane. I remember hearing about the road sanders but never actually saw one.
Sanders are still used around parts of NE. Some towns have banned the use of salt because the runoff contaminates the towns water supply. Quality of drinking water is up…but so are winter accidents.
My wife was an “infection control officer” for a local hospital in the 70s. Part of her job was to report the “bug count” on a monthly basis, since this determined the ongoing accreditation of the hospital.
She persuaded the hospital to let her buy a hand held LED calculator which at that time sold for just under $100. It speeded up her work immensely since that data dealt with %'s and year to date and averages.
Today you would put all this on an EXCEL spread sheet.
Well Sears had an excellent auto parts catalogue in the 70s,Pennys had auto parts too,ever once in a while one of my friends would get an unbelievable deal on a set of headers for example from JC Penny,seemed like the dept stores were at their peak in the 70s and to tell the truth,I really miss them(I almost loathe Wally World)I also miss all the little car dealers that used to be around too,the closest to me now is around 30-35 miles away(you have to go double that to get a fair deal on a lot of cars)oh well,that be as it may,I feel we will survive(see why we need a true general discussion board?)
Sears introduced the U.S. to radial tires in the 60s. I worked at Sears after school and sometimes worked in automotive where the big sales were tires and batteries. I guess Sears was one of the first McShops with a high profile/high overhead location they were significantly more expensive than the independents but many people are drawn to the retail atmosphere and dealing with a man in a white shirt and tie rather than a mechanic. I sold a Mickey Thomson V-8 engine installed and the bill was more than half that weeks total sales for the department. And BTW, that engine was complete with distributor, carburetor, water pump, etc.
This thread has brought back a lot of memories. The Sears catalog, first for toys, then womens underware (just looking and all you guys did it too), then tools, car parts and cabin cruisers and eventually appliances and that first credit account that led to the first credit card and you had made it.
It would take at least a book to list all the reasons that Sears is where it is today. The rise of Walmart, big box stores and internet stores like Amazon are not what caused Sears downfall, they exist because Sears was unable to see the future and take action. Sears allowed those others to succeed. Sears created the opportunity for their existence.
Basically Sears was the victim of bad advice. They valued advice by the price they paid for it rather than the actual value of that advice. A lot of companies do this. They hire a consultant that they pay a lot of money to. The consultant has no dog in the race (not invested), has a theory that had at least short term results under one condition and now thinks it can be universally applied.
One of those theories was to vertically align all your products, then analyze each of those by their ROI (return on investment) and then start eliminating those with the lowest ROI. Sears “discovered” that their highest ROI was their credit department. So they immediately decided to “discover” ways to increase the size of their credit department, and it worked.
Then they found out that the catalog division was their lowest ROI. So they eliminate the catalog department just in time for Amazon to use that business model, combined with the newly emerging internet to become one of the biggest retailers in the country.
Eventually Sears either found a way to make their products more profitable, or dropped them. They never understood that it was the quality, price, and availability of their extensive product line that made their credit department so profitable. They pulled the foundation out from in under the credit department. Eventually it fell too.
There are a lot of other bad decisions as well, this is only a small part of what went wrong.
One of our warehouse guys couldn’t get a Sears credit card
His credit history must have been horrendous . . .
There aren’t any Sears hometown stores near me. Probably because there are several of the large sears stores near me. I’m guessing sears hometown is more for the smaller cities and towns . . . ?
If sears stops their lifetime warranty on tools, I’ll probably never set foot in the store again. Because that’s the main reason I go there
Naturally, I realize I can’t expect lifetime warranty on power tools, but if they stop the lifetime warranty on their wrenches and sockets, for example, I think a lot of other people will also stop shopping there. I know a lot of people that buy tools for their diy repairs or weekend projects at sears
Man Keith,I have to agree,a lot of companies take hits because of this(or the management is just plain stubborn)sometimes you can go through a quarter with no profit,to keep the company together,but the accountants dont seem to understand this,shopping greed has something to do with this sure-but this credit thing,(the carrot)why yesterday,Via ,internet,received an offer from Honda that was almost too good to turn down(did however)Bring in the 08 Civic and swap for a 16 Civic(,the 08 has 9 payments remaining-the 16 Civic only 60 more payments for an additional $80 or so extra a month(around $400) a month,how could I refuse?(easily actually)
Reminds me of medical business. There is no money in a cure. They would prefer a lifetime of revenue from pill taking 
You’re on the cusp of the best years of car ownership- no payments! I give you a lot of credit 
for not taking the bait…
Auto repair shops could take a few lessons from the medical profession @TwinTurbo. If you make it a point to do the most expensive and profitable repairs/treatments first regardless of the likelihood of the problem being correct plus throw outrageously expensive efforts at keeping the car/patient ticking just another day or two as long as the bills are being paid more mechanics could leave their boats to rust and rot while they enjoy a twin engine Beechcraft.
I insulted a doctor when I complained that I was having a difficult time paying his bills because I couldn’t charge my customers for my incompetence.
Well Rod, if you want to put a new engine or transmission in an old car to keep it running, it gets expensive. It would be cheaper to junk it. Same thing in medicine. Replacing parts is expensive but we aren’t yet ready to just junk folks that need parts replaced.
I use Life Cycle Costing on car ownership. When faced with a very major repair, I work out the remaining life of the rest of the car, and price in other repair items likely to occur, and the resulting annual ownership cost for those remaining years, If that exceeds the normal ownership cost by buying another vehicle, I don’t do the repair and junk the vehicle. I don’t believe in sending good money after bad money.
We have many posters here who have kept their cars well beyond what was economical ownership just because they liked the car and were able to keep it running.
I may be near the point @Docnick , 03 trailblazer had rusted power steering lines, firs expensive repair in 8 years, $800, now new struts in front needed, $500, everything eses is good at 170k, will do it, but the price of an suv with 3k lbs towing capability looks like the loss leader at this point.
Speaking of my own experience @Bing, I struggled with various symptoms of and on for over three years and paid in excess of $12,000 after insurance for various tests and one day I repeated a google for several symptoms and diabetes was the most significant answer so I spent ~$20 for a glucose meter and it read 200+ and after eating it went to 300+. Needless to say I was quite bent out of shape. When another bill for over $2,000 arrived I called the local health center and spoke very plainly to the administrator who thought his appology was all that was needed to settle the issue and get my check. That’s been more than 8 years and I haven’t paid the bill yet and so far their threats to sue me have been hot air. The last time we spoke I dared him to sue me but I guess he’s busy with bigger fish to fry.
The real irony is that the health center had been a customer of mine for over 20 years and it is unlikely that they would have continued to do business with me if I had been as incompetent/irresponsible when working on their vehicles including the administrators Bonneville.
I have to tone down the costs at some of these places from time to time,the last was a $7000 fee,for being established as a patient,the secretary said well that included a 12 tier drug test(very expensive she said)so I got hold of a higher up and challenged the administrator,so we parted ways,I didnt pay any more and hoped the insurance company didnt either,I couldnt see a half years wages for 15 minutes of their time(plus,they didnt help me)I know not to pander to dealers now either.