Who remember Sears? Green stamp days etc. Sears Christmas catalog. I found this looking through bag of nickels. I read Sears gave employees these for the celebration.
These are exceedingly common; very interesting and very common. I'd guess mintage exceeded 3,000,000 which is astronomical for this type of token.
The Sears catalog was a staple in every home it seemed. I grew up in Chicagoland and remember when Sears Tower was built. It was the tallest building in the world for 25 years. At their peak, Sears was the largest retailer in the world and had 350,000 employees. I have their 1921 catalog that I found in an abandoned farmhouse around 1976. It has over 1280 pages! It's a time capsule. About the only thing not found in there are coins and coin-related stuff. The coin board thing didn't take off for another decade. The fashions in there are amazing. Roaring Twenties here we come! It was the tail end of the mandolin craze, which peaked at the turn of the century. I have a similar "melon back" that came from my great-grandfather. Everybody played the mandolin. You could literally buy an entire house and have it shipped to you. Many of these houses still exist in towns all over the country.
My next door neighbor was the manager of our local Sears store back in the 1980's. I will have to ask John if he has one of those. James
I often say I helped build the Sears Tower. Of course my role was highly limited. I was walking past behind a fence when an elevator started up and a bolt fell off. They stopped the elevator and asked me to throw it up. We got it on the first try. I'm sure they made more of these than were required to give to their employees. i remember seeing them glued to cards for distribution but i don't remember what was on the cards. I did a lot of my trading back in those days so it's not surprising I saw a lot of them.
My family shopped a lot at Sears as did I when I was older. I was saddened when they closed. I also have one of those tokens but yours is in better condition.
What a coincidence. My buddy just sent me pictures of one of these two days ago asking if it was worth anything. I like the statement “CONTAINS AUTHENTIC MATERIAL”. ………….. Umm, okay.
I remember one Sears here in the Southern Indiana area in Clarksville. It's been closed since 2017, but I think the lettering was still on the store until a couple of years later. I was 8 in 2017, apparently I'm getting kinda old now. \_o-o_/
If you can't remember 9/11/01, you are young in my book! My grandma (who just passed away 3 weeks ago) used to have a number of those catalogues. I spent many hours flipping through those pages. If I recall correctly, most were 1960's-1970's.
Very Sorry for your loss. I was born in 63.. yes remember 9/11.. and the Sears days. 80s awesome times.
