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While moving everything in our house to have the carpeting replaced, I ran across these StewMac and LMI catalogs from days gone by. Man, I miss these. Sitting back in a chair and browsing through these was so much more enjoyable than browsing either company's website is, and it was so much easier to run across products you didn't know existed and wouldn't have even known to look for.

The StewMac catalog has 99 pages and the LMI one has 192 (!) pages.

Not to say that the websites don't have their advantages, but I miss the physical catalogs.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

I'll see your StewMac and LMI soft cover catalogs and raise you an LMI "catalog" (more like instruction manual) from the late 1990s, when I started building:





It's a real treasure in my shop.

Highland Woodworking still does a nice paper catalog. Great for reading in the Throne Room.

AGREED! Excellent reading while on the throne.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Here's a few from the 70's. Two catalogs and one brochure...

Dave

I've still got the old LMI 3 ring binder and it still gets use every once in a while. I don't miss catalogs though. I find a searchable website much better. I just got a catalog in the mail yesterday from some pro audio and music shop company, can't remember the name. I must have purchased soemthing some years ago and they send me one every 6 months it seems. It's freaking' HUGE and must cost a lot of money to produce, I never asked for it, it goes straight into the bin. If I did want to buy something from them I would immediately open up a browser go to their website and search for it.

I confess to being old school--I really miss the card catalog at the library, and miss printed catalogs for the same reason. It's definitely easier to find something I'm looking for by searching a website, and I do this a lot. But the beauty of both the card catalog and printed catalogs is stumbling onto things I wasn't looking for while searching for something else. Sure, this happens online sometimes (YouTube comes to mind), but it happened most of the time with the old printed versions. Same idea supermarkets apply by periodically changing where they put everything in the store, just to where you'll have to walk by things you might not have otherwise. (I don't enjoy that though.)

I was an IT professional for 40 years, so I guess I'm supposed to fully embrace the more technologically advanced ways of doing things. But I don't.

Dave

Yes, as a practical matter, I don't really use any paper catalogs for shopping or buying any more. But I will say that some of the retailers' websites I visit could benefit from better design; some are bad enough to make me wish for a paper catalog that has a more logical layout.

I was a machinist for 40 years, more than half in CNC. I use hand tools. I draw designs on paper with a pencil. Catalogs are cool to look at cool stuff I'll never buy. Websites, at least good ones; are better.
I do use a minilathe for making pegs, and occasionally a dremel, and the 10" band saw.

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Why be normal?

I ran across this one from the early seventies. Earl had his own instrument and supplies business. I guess he ran it from his house in Madison, Tn. He lists Gibson J-45 for $250.00 back then. I miss the old prices more than the catalogues.

I had forgotten all about those record caddys...And it adds smartness to your record room to boot!

Dave

I love paging through catalogs and miss them. Yep still have a couple of LMI’s ring bound ones. The LMI website after it was updated is hard for me to navigate.

Walter Lipton’s little paperback Euphonon ones were cool.

Still get a big one from Sweetwater regularly.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Love it. I remember my LMI catalogue. Ordering it was like a right of passage.

Yep, I miss thumbing through the catalogs seeing solutions to problems I didn't even know I was going to have…

Slightly tangential, but the big yellow McMaster Carr catalog was THE book of all knowledge back in the pre-internet engineering / machine shop days.

Literally.

Senior mechanical engineering design class, ONE copy of the McM/C scripture for all to share and source from.

Even after graduation, on into the workforce, not just anybody got one of the golden catalogs.

McMaster has one of the easiest/best websites to navigate, so I recently got rid of the one still residing on my bookshelf at work. There is one on my bookshelf at home, for posterity.

Paper catalogs were always great for finding stuff you didn't know you needed, as mentioned above. Browsing a website just doesn't do that.

I never throw my catalogs out -I have them from the late 70's -till they stopped sending them.
Love to see the price differences.



Mike

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Mike Collins

Wish I could find my Lewis Luthier Supplies catalog from 1970. Lost in one of my many moves.

Brent

It isn’t guitar related, but topical to the thread. Just yesterday my wife and I were discussing the old sears wish book. There are videos on YouTube of them! Page by page!
Then… today I got a toy catalogue from amazon … a whishbook-like.



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I got one of those Amazon wish books in the mail yesterday too.

Another non-lutherie related catalog I used to get and enjoy (and even order things from) was the J.C. Whitney auto parts/accessories catalog. I was actually able to order a transmission for a 1957 Morris Minor from them--it was in the catalog along with lots of chrome stuff, kits to turn your VW Beetle into a Rolls Royce "Status Wagen" and accessories like oil filters that used rolls of toilet paper as the filter material...

Dave

I still have the original #1 Woodcraft Supply catalog. Amazing looking at the long ago prices.

Years ago, Woodworkers Supply of New Mexico had a special "Wanted" program--If you sent them the covers off of their old catalogs, they would send you merchandise. The more catalogs you had, the better the stuff they would reward you with. I had them all and got a nice pattern makers vise which I still use today. There are advantages to being a pack rat!

Dave