A while back I came across a Wishbook website that has archives of several retailers’ holiday Wish Book catalogs through the decades. Since my students and I are working together to get a sense of how things were back in the 1980s, I thought this might be a good way to become familiar with what kinds of consumer items were being sold as Christmas presents in the 1980s. For convenience, I will link directly to the relevant catalogs here:

1980’s Catalogs

• 1980 JC Penney
• 1981 Wards
• 1982 Sears
• 1983 Sears
• 1984 Wards
• 1985 Sears
• 1986 Sears
• 1987 Sears (Canada)
• 1988 Sears
• 1989 Sears

I liked this VHS camcorder in the 1989 Sears catalog, although I’m pretty sure by that time I had access to one of the JVC VHS-C models that were quite a bit of a smaller form factor. At $995 it seems a little pricey (over $2,000 in today’s dollars).

What are some of the favorite things you found in the catalogs? Use the Inflation Calculator to see what these things would cost in today’s dollars.