Like A Time Machine to My Childhood. Merry Christmas.

One of my favorite memories from my childhood was getting the Sears, JCPenney, or Service Merchandise Christmas wishbooks delivered to our house. My mother would give me a pen to circle toys that I wanted Santa to bring. Of course Santa didn't bring everything, but I would usually get several things. I would look through these catalogs countless times in the days leading up to Christmas day.

Low and behold, someone has collected, scanned and created a website devoted to these 'wishbook' catalogs.

WishbookWeb.com

They have catalogs from the 1930's to the 1980's. I'm an 80's kid, so I took particular interest in those. Looking through them again takes me back to my childhood as if Marty McFly himself dropped me off in the Delorean. It's also cool to check out the catalogs from the 40's and 50's. Check out those prices!

Hope some ATS'ers get as much joy out of this site as I did. Also, feel free to comment with your favorite toy you got for Christmas. Mine was probably the Atari 2600 or a number of different Lego sets I got over the years. I apologize in advance for all of the hours this is going to waste.

Action Man our (better version of GI joe.)



What was great about AM was you bought the figure then bought the outfits nowadays you have to buy a new Doll..ooops sorry ACTION FIGURE ever time.

I wanted that aircraft carrier SO freakin badly when I was a kid...

reply to post by boymonkey74


I wasn't huge on GI Joe though I did have a few action figures and vehicles. In fact, I had the tank pictured in the catalog. My neighbor had everything so I would just play with his. I was more of a Hot Wheel & Legos guy. I could spend hours with either.

reply to post by DeadSeraph


Agreed. I think that was the holy grail among 8 year old boys in the 80's.

reply to post by jtrenthacker


WOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!


Fantastic find my friend..my son is now into transformers and this has all the pictures of them and the prices back then....When are they ever going to build that time machine....this was a great post...thank you so much for the rush of memories....

Chris

reply to post by chrismarco


Glad you enjoyed it. I found this site last year and never posted it. It just hit me a few hours ago. I remember when transformers (and lots of other toys) were made of mostly metal. Made them seem more real. The transformers now feel like they're going to break just holding them. They don't last 10 minutes with my sons.

I got the Voltron toy pictured in the op with all the robotic/mechanical lions that connect to make the big Voltron. Used to watch the cartoon too. Just a couple days after I got it my best friend came over and broke the connector part that attaches the leg so the leg could not go on anymore... I still played with the lions but without being able to make Voltron it was just not the same. Thanks for sharing bud.

reply to post by 3n19m470


Great story. I remember how expensive those full size Voltrons were. There was only one kid in my grade that had all the lions. My 8 year old self weeps for your broken Voltron leg.