J.C. Higgins knife

[americanjack]

Thanks everyone for your help. I Looked on ebay under shrade walden and found out that it was a h 15.

[zzyzzogeton]

From the Sears Archives website--


Many people ask if there was a real "J.C. Higgins" who worked for Sears. There certainly was. John Higgins began working for Sears in 1898 as the manager of the headquarters' office bookkeepers and retired as company comptroller in 1930.

"John Higgins" the employee became "J.C. Higgins" the brand name during a discussion in 1908 among Sears' executives of possible names for a new line of sporting goods. At this point, the story gets a bit murky, but Higgins' name was suggested and John Higgins consented to Sears use his name. Since he did not have a middle initial, Sears added the "C."

In 1908, the Western Sporting Goods Company in Chicago began putting J.C. Higgins on baseballs and baseball gloves sold in Sears catalogs. By 1910, the J.C. Higgins trademark was extended to cover footballs and basketballs. Later, the popularity of the Higgins brand—combined with the wider participation of American youth in sports—led Sears to place tennis equipment, soccer balls, volleyballs, boxing equipment and baseball uniforms in the J.C. Higgins line.

By the 1940s, J.C. Higgins represented all Sears fishing, boating and camping equipment. After the Second World War, Sears consolidated all sporting goods under the J.C. Higgins brand name and added it to a line of luggage.

The J.C. Higgins brand disappeared shortly after Sears introduced the Ted Williams brand of sporting and recreation goods in 1961.

J.C. Higgins: 1908-1964
J.C.Higgins 1909 baseball.
J.C.Higgins Basketball 1920.
J.C.Higgins 1946 Bowling.
J.C.Higgins Football 1957.
J.C.Higgins Golf 1961.

[kootenay joe]

Hi zzyzz, thanks for this bit of Sears history.
Welcome to AAPK. Please keep posting, we all enjoy history as it pertains to knives & knife brands.
kj

[tongueriver]

Hi zzyzz, thanks for this bit of Sears history.
Welcome to AAPK. Please keep posting, we all enjoy history as it pertains to knives & knife brands.
kj

Ask him about Western States (he is the man).

[kootenay joe]

Great to know except i don't know Western well enough to even have a question, but this could change.
It is a real asset to have members who know a specific 'area' in depth. They often know an answer while the rest of us are guessing.
kj

[treefarmer]

Wayne,
Interesting info from the Sears Archives but there seems to be something missing! Is their historian trying to be politically correct by not mentioning the many firearms that were labeled J.C.Higgins? Since all the Civil War statues/monuments portraying Confederate participation are being removed because of political correctness, I thought perhaps Sears was ahead of the curve.
Treefarmer

[zzyzzogeton]

Didn't even notice that.

Unfortunately, the Sears Archive website is incomplete. They don't even have a section on Ted Williams line of sporting goods at all, much less the Ted Williams ,22LR Rifle

I don't know the reasoning behind not listing them in the list of products and dates. Although it is probably an error. The page where I copied the text doesn't even have the list I included. When I pasted the text here, the list appeared. Maybe whatever database list the page is pulling from is corrupted.

Elsewhere in the archives, there is a "firearms" page, with answers to questions submitted to Sears. On a Higgins shotgun question, Sears stated that the Higgins 12ga shotgun first appeared in 1948 and was last sold in 1964.

link to the firearm page at the Sears archives.
http://www.searsarchives.com/products/q ... /index.htm