All About Pocket Knives

Down at the barber shop, among all the car magazines, they have a reproduction of an 1894-1895 Montgomery Ward Catalog. Thought there might be some interest in seeing the pages devoted to pocket knives.

Thanks Jerry!

Wouldn't you just love to be able to jump into your Way-Back Machine with a $100 in your pocket.

you know it buddy. I'd come back with a big load of sharpies!

What's the publication info of that catalog, Jerry?
I'd like to get one!
..... Joe

I'll have to stop by the barber shop and get that for ya Joe. Maybe tomorrow. Depends on what's going on.

Much appreciated, Jerry!

I have one of the repo's of the Sears & Roebuck catalogs somewhere.
Also, I remember hearing stories of how the catalogs were kept in the outhouse.....

...... Joe

Joe Dirt wrote:Much appreciated, Jerry!

I have one of the repo's of the Sears & Roebuck catalogs somewhere.
Also, I remember hearing stories of how the catalogs were kept in the outhouse.....

...... Joe

I also had one of the reproduction Sears catalogs. I don't recall what year but I want to say early 20th century. 1906 kinda sticks in my mind but I could be wrong. Lost it in the flood of 2006.

The "stories" of how catalogs were kept in the outhouse? They're not just stories. When the new Sears catalog came out, the old one took the path to the little house behind the big house. "The Wish Book" was entertaining and useful during your daily periods of reflection. Everyone hated it when the catalog got down to just the slick color pages.

I grew up during that period of time so that's experience talking, not just something I heard the old folks talking about. Our last outhouse was during my Sophomore & Jr. years of high school. No inside water. Fuel oil brought home in five gallon cans for a big oil stove, on top of which I heated a couple of rocks about the size of your head to take upstairs with me to bed because there wasn't any heat up there. Baths were taken in a #2 washtub set in the middle of the kitchen floor. Clothes were hung outside on the line to dry, summer and winter. We did have electricity and a telephone. When I say we were poor folks, I ain't just woofin'.

jerryd6818 wrote: The "stories" of how catalogs were kept in the outhouse? They're not just stories. When the new Sears catalog came out, the old one took the path to the little house behind the big house. "The Wish Book" was entertaining and useful during your daily periods of reflection. Everyone hated it when the catalog got down to just the slick color pages.

I grew up during that period of time so that's experience talking, not just something I heard the old folks talking about. Our last outhouse was during my Sophomore & Jr. years of high school. No inside water. Fuel oil brought home in five gallon cans for a big oil stove, on top of which I heated a couple of rocks about the size of your head to take upstairs with me to bed because there wasn't any heat up there. Baths were taken in a #2 washtub set in the middle of the kitchen floor. Clothes were hung outside on the line to dry, summer and winter. We did have electricity and a telephone. When I say we were poor folks, I ain't just woofin'.

We got electricity at the start of my senior year of high school. We had the ol’ outhouse too, complete with the old Sears catalog and usually the Montgomery Wards catalog too.

The slick pages are the worst!
I preferred the newspaper.
Ya’ knew you was squattin’ in tall cotton when you had real TP on a roll!
That was right up town!

I remember watching a TV interview with an older feller talking about the outhouse.
It must have been on the Discovery channel, a program on the development of the modern toilet.

He says: "we had a basket full of corn cobs. You used a couple of brown ones, then you
used a white one to see if you needed to use another brown one."

..... Joe

Corn cobs behind the barn. A tree leaf out in the woods (make sure you don't grab some Poison Ivy or Poison Oak ). A chamber pot (or just called "the pot" at our house) for the late night hours. Those were the days my friend.

Okay Joe. Here's all I could find on the catalog.

Montgomery Ward & Co 1894-1895 Catalogue & Buyers Guide #56
Follett Publishing Co
Chicago/New York
ISBN 0 695 80068 X
Published in approximately 1970

Amazon does have the Spring & Summer 1894 Edition but I don't know anything about it. One would assume they would be the same but...