RIP Sears, Roebuck & Co... a little thread to salute some of the stuff they sold in their catalogs. First, the Allstate car (basically a rebadged Kaiser Henry J) 
Sears was for years a big seller of motorcycles. Here's a 1913 Sears (I think made by Thor) and a 1957 Allstate (a French Motobecane)
Sears also popularized Italian scooters in the US. The Allstate Cruisaire was a rebadged Piaggio Vespa P-series
Sears was also the world's largest musical instrument seller. The first Sears-branded guitars were "Supertone" (later the more familiar Silvertone) and sourced from a number of makers
Silvertone hollow body electrics (largely made by Chicago Musical Instruments and Kay) are highly prized, as are some later Japanese-made solid bodies
as a number of you have pointed out, Sears sold kit houses, sometimes referred to as Roebuck (or Craftsman) Bungalows. Many still survive around the country, especially in Chicago burbs and Riverside/San Bernardino CA
Your Sears house arrived unassembled by freight car, so it helped to be located near rail line. In and around Chicago you will see clusters of them located near Metra stations.
And then there was denim! Sears was outfitter to America's Lunchbucket Joes from 1920s Hercules overalls, to 1950s Roebucks, to the dreaded Toughskins of my youth
Sears used the brand "JC Higgins" for their sporting goods, from bicycles to baseball bats to firearms.
Sears literally had you covered from cradle to grave
On behalf of 4 generations of American boys, I would also like to thank Sears for always thoughtfully including those special pages of Ooh-La-Lah
Weird fact: Sears had been in business for many years before they opened their first retail store in Chicago in 1925, sort of the first Amazon Go store. They never really had that many stores until after WW2.
A few of Sears' surviving commercial offspring:
Allstate Insurance
Discover Card
WLS radio Chicago ("World's Largest Store")
Craftsman tools
Kenmore appliances (named after Kenmore Ave Chicago)
Allstate Insurance
Discover Card
WLS radio Chicago ("World's Largest Store")
Craftsman tools
Kenmore appliances (named after Kenmore Ave Chicago)
And then there's the greatest legacy of Sears Roebuck & Company, with an assist by Skidmore Owings & Merrill. Sorry, Willis, I will never call it anything other than the Sears Tower.
Possibly the craziest thing ever sold in the Sears catalog: school buildings
