I’m so excited two weekends ago I went vintage shopping with my vintage shopping BFF in crime and stumbled upon this amazing find in the bottom of a glass case (yay for having eagle eyes). A very good condition 1942-1943 Fall and Winter Montgomery Ward Catalogue (note: please see a better written PART TWO post HERE).
1942-1943 Fall and Winter Montgomery Ward Catalogue
Some of you might be asking…..
“What is Montgomery Ward“?
Montgomery Ward was created by “Aaron Montgomery Ward” in 1872 as the first every dry goods mail-order catalog business in Chicago Illinois. After several years of working as a traveling salesman among rural customers. He observed that rural customers often wanted “city” goods but their only access to them was through rural retailers who had little competition and offered no guarantee of quality. Ward also believed that by eliminating intermediaries, he could cut costs and make a wide variety of goods available to rural customers, who could purchase goods by mail and pick them up at the nearest train station (Wikipedia-Montgomery Ward).
Montgomery Ward Firsts and Highlights
- The Slogan “satisfaction guaranteed or your money back”, Ward began using in 1875 (he created it)
- In 1883, the company’s catalog, which became popularly known as the “Wish Book”, had grown to 240 pages and 10,000 items
- By 1904, the company had grown such that three million catalogs, weighing 4 pounds each, were mailed to customers
- 1926 the first Retail store is opened
- 1929 saw Montgomery Ward Double its stores to 531 across the United States
- In 1939, as part of a Christmas promotional campaign, staff copywriter Robert L. May created the character and illustrated poem of “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Six million copies of the storybook were distributed in 1946. The song was popularized nationally by the actor and singer Gene Autry
- 1950’s saw the store fall into its eventual downfall as the company was slow to respond to the general movement of the American middle class to suburbia. It’s competitors (like Sears) built stores where the customers where, Montgomery Ward chose to stay in City Centers and Main streets where the customers no longer shopped like they used too
- 1985 the catalog portion of the business closes
- December 28th, 2000 Montgomery Ward makes the announcement that it will shut its doors for good (Wikipedia-Montgomery Ward).
Wow that is some history, terribly sad that the business ended up closing its doors in the end though 🙁
All that sad part aside, lets take a look at some of the pictures from the Catalogue shall we? (Note: You will be seeing more of this book in future posts as I plan to use it as reference for blog posts to come).
Brief Look Inside a Vintage Montgomery Ward Catalog
Look at those Victory Suits…beautiful!
FURTHER READING: The Skirt Suit: A Fall Fashion Trend. The 1940s Edition
Yes please I will take all the velvet dresses and hats and jackets..how perfect would these be for the holiday season??
Look how handsome these boys are?? I wish my nephews dressed like this.
Look at the ruffles and the pinks and the flowers? WOW! my husband would kill me if I brought any of that into my home (and to be honest, I think it’s a bit too much for me too lol)
So there you have a sneak peek into my recent vintage purchase. Hope you enjoyed learning a bit about Montgomery Wards and browsing the pages of the catalog just like so many people did back in 1942-43.
Until next time!
REMINDER: Montgomery Ward Catalog Fall Winter 1942-1943. Part 2 & Vintage Wallpaper Ideas from a 1940 Montgomery Ward Catalog
Liz
What a seriously terrific find! I adore vintage catalogs, too, and always keep my eyes peeled for them while out thrifting and doing the yard sale rounds.
I love the pink ruffles on those bedskirts, too. So femininely pretty!
♥ Jessica
This one was apparently sitting in the store for years and nobody ever wanted to buy it..crazy! I’m now addicted and will be on the hunt as well 🙂
What would be the evaluation of the catalog ?
That is not my world (evaluation of vintage items), so I could not really tell you (Sorry!). I can tell you what I paid for it when I found it, which was $50. Hope that helps.
Liz
Wonderful.. Thanks for the info.. We will keep ours and save it for my grandchildren.. Ours is in perfect condition. I really appreciate your time and consideration. Best, Patti
No problem! Yes Save it! Great idea 🙂
Take care!
Liz
A different take on the subject of “vintage”. Great blog!
Thanks so much!
Reblogged this on ShooLicious Blog.
Thanks for reblogging this post 🙂
Welcome!
I recently inherited a 1942 diamond wedding band. I am thinking it probably came from Montgomery Ward. Anyway I could get you to send me some pics of those pages so I can check? It’s a yellow gold band with 5 small cut diamonds in a white gold setting.
Ohh wow, very nice 🙂 yes I will see if those pages are still intact (I have noticed that a couple of pages have gone missing). If they are I will send them to the email I see attached to your profile.
Liz
Hi Micki,
I looked at the book and there are lots of pages with rings, but when I took the pictures they did not come out quite right. The book is very fragile so I cannot scan. I’m going to look at them one by one tonight and see if I see the ring you mentioned.
Liz
I know this is rather “late out of the gate” as it were, but the style of wedding band that was mentioned in the original question was probably THE most common basic design of all the diamond wedding bands of the War years. Without either original paperwork from the purchase, the usual family lore regarding something unique about the time, place, or method of purchase, or a good look at the maker’s mark and/or other information inside the band itself, such as a style name, the brand or other marks, it would be almost impossible to tell where it came from, or who produced it.
The typical wedding and engagement ring sets that were produced during the early to mid 40’s were a product of limited supplies of the alloys required to make white gold, and in some instances, no white gold at all, and the substitution of Palladium for the desired white metal. Nickel was one of the metals that became in short supply during the war years, as it had been declared a “strategic metal” for use in electronics and other needs to produce war materiel of various kinds. It had been released to the jewelry industry in limited supplies, as a concession to “morale” in the production of engagement and wedding rings, but it wasn’t always a reliable resource, as war needs always took precedence. Even yellow gold wasn’t as available as it had been in the 30’s. You can tell by the thinness of even plain wedding bands at the time, in addition to the construction methods of diamond studded designs. The bands, or shanks were most usually yellow gold, with a separately cast and soldered in top piece of white gold or Palladium. There were sets and individual rings made of all white metals, usually white gold or all Palladium, depending on what was in most convenient supply at the time. If you look at many of the catalogs through the War years (I own several), you’ll find periods of time where Palladium was the only white precious metal offered for sale.
The Round Brilliant Cut diamonds, as opposed to Old European Cut, and Mine Cut round stones, and the transitional cut that appeared in between them, were a very new style of faceting diamonds, and because of their very new design, not all available diamond cutters of the day were familiar with how to produce them. And, since the majority of diamonds were being faceted and polished in Europe prior to the War, with Amsterdam as a diamond capitol of the time, and Jewish diamond cutters the vast majority of the artists who produced them – the population of diamond cutters was absolutely decimated by the Nazi regime, with the invasion of the Netherlands, and the Holocaust in general. This made diamonds already polished and ready to set in jewelry a much more rare commodity during the War than ever before.
But, the “harvesting” of diamonds did not stop during the War, as the use of industrial grade diamonds used in manufacturing were in demand for the production of various items for war use. In order to gather up a supply of the industrial grade stones, they had to be mined just like the supply of jewelry grade stones. In other words, you had to gather up everything out of the mines, and THEN sort them out. You couldn’t just pull the industrial grade stones from the ground and leave the others behind! Besides, the sale of jewelry grade stones helped support the operation of the mines to get them all out.
So, in order to make the new Brilliants more affordable, and to further distribute the smaller supply, the use of much smaller stones was undertaken in order to spread the supply out more. Center stones of 20-25 points at most, and below, down to three points, were most common, and single cut one point or even half point stones were frequently used for the side stones. There were, of course, larger stones as centers, up to and over a carat, but they were much more rare, and of course very much more expensive. The quality was much better then than a lot of the junk stones being mounted in rings and other pieces today. That increased their rarity. The actual 4Cs as they exist today, did not exist then, as the GIA did not yet exist. The gemstone experts and jewelers of the day did, of course, examine and value gem diamonds and rate them based on specific criteria for quality, color and clarity, but the standards were not the same as those we use today.
White gold and palladium settings were used to help amplify the whiteness, the sparkle and particularly the apparent size of those small stones. You’ll notice that the vast majority of center, and especially side stones, were set in highly detailed, carved settings, called “Miracle” or “Illusion” style mountings, which added to the reflectivity of the diamonds, tended to increase their sparkle, and their size to the eye. Particularly the squared mountings of the majority of center stones in engagement rings, which increased their apparent size, particularly from a distance.
The previously very popular Tiffany style mounting was rare at this time, since the availability of the size of diamonds which would most benefit from it just didn’t exist in any appreciative quantity.
It would take quite a little while to train and cultivate American diamond cutters to produce the round brilliant cuts of the quality that had just begun to exist in Europe before the War.
We were extremely blessed to not have suffered through the severe restrictions that were placed on our British sisters during their extended period of rationing of not only foods, but gasoline, soaps, cosmetics, garments and hosiery, appliances, and even wedding rings! (Their last rationing of certain foods didn’t end until 1954!) In 1942, wartime measures saw the introduction of a ‘utility’ mark, the result of a Board of Trade Prohibition of Supplies Order of 1942. This restricted the manufacture of gold wedding rings to 9 carat gold (when 18ct and even 22ct had been the most available and desirable prior to the War) and a weight of less than 2 dwts (pennyweights.) Two dwts equals about 3.1 grams. A pennyweight is equal to 1.555 grams.
To show they had been produced by government authority they were marked with a special punch featuring two circles, each with a section cut out, similar to that used on utility clothing. (It actually looks like a letter “O” that is not completely closed at the top or the bottom.) I have several photographs, but unfortunately can’t add them here! We were very lucky, as the production of wedding rings in England was not a high priority effort, and there were numerous anecdotal references during the period of rationing, which extended for several years following the end of the War, regarding jewelers who constantly applied to suppliers for delivery of dozens to hundreds of wedding bands, and were considered lucky to receive even a tenth of the number they needed! Antique and vintage jewelry dealers, and second hand/pawn brokers shops were scoured for wedding bands in the early years of the restrictions, trying to locate suitable rings for the brides in wartime weddings. Many family heirlooms were pressed into service, and other forms of gold jewelry were sometimes donated and melted down to produce private sourced wedding bands, made by the local goldsmith. Any wedding band found today with a wartime date mark, and above 9ct was produced using family gold sources, as no others were available commercially. Yellow gold has always been the desirable type of metal for wedding bands. In a book of short anecdotes told by those who lived through the War years in England, there is one told about a young couple who married during the War, and the groom was unable to locate a “proper” gold wedding band for his bride, no matter how many stores he scoured in the process, as well as his friends. He was, however, able to present her with a family heirloom wedding band of an alternate material, which she wore until their 25th wedding anniversary, when her husband was able to locate, afford to buy and present her with a “proper” wedding band of 18ct yellow gold. She put it on immediately, after removing the family heirloom band she had been wearing for the prior 25 years, made of Platinum! It was the yellow gold band that was “approved” and recognized symbol of marriage during all those years, and a white metal, even Platinum, wasn’t as desirable. Very strange sometimes, the unusual differences that can exist between two cultures that aren’t all that dissimilar, isn’t It?
Here, on the other hand, other than an actual commercial shortage of certain materials, there were no real restrictions on what we had available, or what we could purchase at any given time. The government had initially intended to apply much more strict limitations on the availability of precious metals at the beginning of the War, but the jewelry industry in general, and a couple of companies in particular, appealed to the morale aspect of the officials involved, focusing on the marriage aspects and the potential effects of metal shortages on the wedding jewelry industry in particular. A serious lack of wedding rings could have also created a negative effect on the marriage rate, which was considered a stabilizing influence on society. (It also wouldn’t have had much of a positive effect on the economic aspects of the jewelry industry, either!)
In case you’re wondering, my grandfather was a jeweler, and all my life I’ve held a fascination for 1930’s and 1940’s vintage wedding jewelry, particularly from the War years, and I’ve done a good bit of research on the War years on the Home Front in Great Britain also!
I have several catalogs from places like Sears and Wards, from those years, and have purchased several of them strictly for the wedding and engagement rings they are offering. There are also websites that have Christmas catalogs scanned online that show the styles available at the time.
WOW! This is an incredible reply to my simple posting. Thank you so very much for sharing all your wisdom and knowledge, this was a very very interesting read. I knew nothing of what you share.
Thank you!
Liz
I have Two catalogs to sell
Hi Carol,
I’m not in the market right now, but thanks for letting me know.
Liz
Hi Liz,
I’m looking for an image of ice skates for sale in a Montgomery Ward Catalog, around 1942. Would you possibly be able to send me an image?
Hi Nancy,
I will take a look when I have a few minutes. Please give me a few days to see if there is anything.
Liz