Need an engine Sears has just what you need. (Ad from 1953)

[Ray62]

The older you are, the more you remember the days when Sears sold just about anything and everything. At a flea market this past weekend I found this flyer from Sears with a print year of 1953 advertising its rebuilt engines. It's a total of eight pages plus it still has the original order blank and envelope. I'm included photographs a few of the pages here so you can check out the prices and see if they sold something for your car. Notice that they don't list anything for luxury lines such as Cadillac, Lincoln, Packard, etc. 

[Jim Skelly]

look at those prices!

[Frank DuVal]

The Buick engines are lighter than the Olds 8 and Pontiac 8, until you see the Buick does not come with a head, the Olds and Pontiac do.

 

I see Packard owners do not shop at Sears.🤣

 

 

 

 

[Marty Roth]

Dad bought a totally worn out 1942 Chevy Stylemaster Sport Sedan - a 4-door. It was 1950, the car was mechanically all used up, and looked pathetic with its Powder Puff Maroon paint job. Barely running, but affordable, it was a decent alternative to his even worse 1937 Chevy Master DeLuxe Town Sedan. By Thanksgiving, it was rented to the local Post Office, and that rental provided enough to pay for a rebuilt SHORT BLOCK from SEARS. We had planned to do the complete valve job ourselves, but since he was working three jobs, we took the head to Associated Auto Parts on Elizabeth Avenue in Linden, NJ. I think their machine shop charge for the head work was about half the price of the Core Charge on the worn out block, (either $10 or $12). Getting the Chevy back from the Post Office after New Years, we installed the rebuilt engine and sanded the car down to bare metal, then primed it, learned how to block-sand the primer coats to perfection, and completed the job with 19 coats of hand-rubbed black laquer. Now our 1942 (masquerading as a 1951) Chevy was ready to hit the road. I was the kid in the back seat, and my 2 year old little brother was left t visit with Mom's folks in the then very nice East New York section of Brooklyn. We visited the Military Academy at West Point, Fort Ticonderoga, Ausable Chasm, Plattsburg (where dad grew up), Montreal, and all the way to Niagara Falls before returning home. Once back in Linden, Dad declared that the fantastic Chevy was "broken in". Even the vacuum shift worked flawlessly.

Edited September 19, 2023 by Marty Roth (see edit history)

[Laughing Coyote]

Sears was the Amazon back in the day. You could buy anything. 

[Rusty_OToole]

I don't see Hudson or Nash on the list.

[plymouthcranbrook]

$159.00 with exchange for a 51 Plymouth. 😀

[rocketraider]

Noticed that except for Buick and Chevrolet these are all flatheads. Wonder when Sears stopped selling engines, and did their service centers install them? Also who might have rebuilt them for Sears?

 

27 minutes ago, Laughing Coyote said:

Sears was the Amazon back in the day. You could buy anything. 

Yup. Sears, JC Penney and Montgomery Ward pretty much invented catalog shopping and mail order. They didn't adapt quickly enough and by the time they did Amazon had become the 800-lb gorilla of internet shopping and mail order.

 

I miss Sears and the others. I simply do not like Amazon and avoid it as much as possible. Might be because I like putting my own eyes and hands on what I'm spending my money on.

[Marty Roth]

1 hour ago, Laughing Coyote said:

Sears was the Amazon back in the day. You could buy anything. 

And generally had your choice of price range,

as most items had three versions,

offered as  "Good", "Better", and "Best" - and priced modestly, but accordingly.

You never really knew if there was a significant difference, and if you really got better quality for the higher price-

A major marketing method,

and some seemed to be a "Loss-Leader",

and Sears was accused of "Bait and Switch"

 

Their CRAFTSMAN tools were great quality, and in the old days they really backed up the Lifetime Guarantee

Edited September 19, 2023 by Marty Roth
additional note (see edit history)

[Jubilee]

Those prices seem pretty high for the time. You could buy a pretty good used car for some of those prices.

My Dad had a truck and tractor repair shop (and trucking business) from right after WWll until the mid sixties.  Good car engine overhaul never would run over

$100. I’d say most were $60-$80. Now, if you had a hole in the block with a rod sticking through it, then you might get close to Sears prices depending what the junkyard had.

 

II think the top mechanics were getting $1.00- $1-25/hr. No overtime, but they could use a Chilton’s flat rate on many jobs. This was early-middle fifties. New hires started @ .75 / hr I think. I don’t know, I never got paid any money, but I  did get free gas, tires, and repairs.

[TAKerry]

My 6 second search said $200 in 1953 is about $2000. dollars today, so not all that bad for a new motor. I just spent 4 x 's that having one rebuilt. 

Yes, Sears was a great place and a large part of most of us guys childhood I would imagine. Especially about this time of year when the wishbook came out!!

[8E45E]

10 hours ago, rocketraider said:

Noticed that except for Buick and Chevrolet these are all flatheads. Wonder when Sears stopped selling engines, and did their service centers install them? Also who might have rebuilt them for Sears?

 

Yup. Sears, JC Penney and Montgomery Ward pretty much invented catalog shopping and mail order. They didn't adapt quickly enough and by the time they did Amazon had become the 800-lb gorilla of internet shopping and mail order.

 

I miss Sears and the others. I simply do not like Amazon and avoid it as much as possible. Might be because I like putting my own eyes and hands on what I'm spending my money on.

That's the huge difference between the two.  Amazon is a "warehouse only" operation, filled by staff only, and no public admittance.  Thus no need for cashiers, security, showroom displays, staff to pick up and repack boxes after careless shoppers, and other overhead, etc.

 

Craig

[Str8-8-Dave]

I thought about buying a sears engine when I was a teenage but always wound up back in the junkyard...

[joe_padavano]

17 hours ago, Jim Skelly said:

look at those prices!

Median annual household income in 1953 was $4,200. Those prices were like 5% of your annual gross income.

[joe_padavano]

2 hours ago, 8E45E said:

That's the huge difference between the two.  Amazon is a "warehouse only" operation, filled by staff only, and no public admittance.  Thus no need for cashiers, security, showroom displays, staff to pick up and repack boxes after careless shoppers, and other overhead, etc.

 

Craig

And the Sears catalog operation was different how? One didn't need to go into a Sears store to order from the catalog.

[drhach]

1 hour ago, joe_padavano said:

And the Sears catalog operation was different how? One didn't need to go into a Sears store to order from the catalog.

I remember my buddy wanted to build a mini-bike. His Dad got out the Sears catalog, found the engines page, called Sears and placed his order. They didn't even ask for any kind of payment. They called him when the engine came in. All he had to do was show with the right claim number and hand over cash, a check or a money order. 

 

Amazon makes you pay first   

[DonMicheletti]

As far as engine "rebuilds" go, back in the "old days", and engine overhaul meant, new rings a valve grind (maybe just re-lapped) and taking up on the rods.

 

A Big differecne from a real rebuild of boring, pistons, new valves, guides, crank grind, new bearings and on and on.

 

"Overhaul" costs could be $10.00 fro a set of rings, $5.00 for a "valve grind" gasket set and a can of valve lapping compound - already used before.

 

Been there, done both.

[nearchoclatetown]

My father had a '52 Ford with a Sears six cylinder engine. Used as much oil as gas. When they looked in valve cover it looked like it had 100000 miles on it. My mother worked at Sears for a few weeks. On Friday they would mark up prices by 20% so they could have a 10% off sale on Sat. She quit.

[TexRiv_63]

I never tried an engine but I did buy a "remanufactured" 1955 air cooled Fordomatic transmission. It came painted in a weird Earl Scheib like green color. It worked but I put it behind a hopped up Y-block and manually shifted it constantly with a floor shift - did not last long! Always wondered if the only remanufacturing was the paint job...

[8E45E]

3 hours ago, joe_padavano said:

And the Sears catalog operation was different how? One didn't need to go into a Sears store to order from the catalog.

If one lived in a small town or village, there usually was a store-front mail-order office that had current Sears catalogs and flyers with desks where a customer could sit down, fill out his or her order and then submit it to the person at the counter.   

 

Anything these days is always done online.    Can one place an order in person at an Amazon warehouse if they are close to one?

 

Craig   

[joe_padavano]

2 hours ago, 8E45E said:

If one lived in a small town or village, there usually was a store-front mail-order office that had current Sears catalogs and flyers with desks where a customer could sit down, fill out his or her order and then submit it to the person at the counter.  

And still, "...no need for cashiers, security, showroom displays, staff to pick up and repack boxes after careless shoppers, and other overhead, etc."

[rocketraider]

4 hours ago, nearchoclatetown said:

My father had a '52 Ford with a Sears six cylinder engine. Used as much oil as gas. When they looked in valve cover it looked like it had 100000 miles on it.

If it came as a long block without rocker cover seems that would (or should) have been caught on engine installation.

 

Sounds more like whoever installed it substituted a junkyard engine for the Sears rebuild and pocketed the difference.

[8E45E]

43 minutes ago, joe_padavano said:

And still, "...no need for cashiers, security, showroom displays, staff to pick up and repack boxes after careless shoppers, and other overhead, etc."

A mail order store still had a cashier that handled real money when you picked up your order, plus no doubt packaged returns for you.  

 

Craig

[Marty Roth]

6 hours ago, joe_padavano said:

Median annual household income in 1953 was $4,200. Those prices were like 5% of your annual gross income.

Lots of variance in those numbers:

Burgess, Director, Bureau of the Census, Department of Commerce. The median income of men with money incomes in 1953 was estimated at $3,200, about $100 or 4 percent greater than in 1952. The median income of women was estimated at about $1,200 in both years.Oct 8, 2021

 

Dad was a full-time 72 hours per week City Firefighter in Linden, NJ since 1946 or 1947. They purchased their first home, a 2-family with rental income to help offset the mortgage, with the help of the VA/GI Bill. Fast forward to 1953 with two growing sons, and a daughter soon to be on the way. When he and Mom (a full-time homemaker) applied for the mortgage on their next home, the application verified his annual salary at $2,400. At the mortgage burning ceremony in 1973, the bank officer looked over the paperwork and told my folks the original application must have been in error and therefore (jokingly?) invalid, as that would have been his "monthly" pay. Amazing what the younger generation didn't appreciate. Dad took the uninformed youngster aside to explain the facts of life, as well as the job market for men returning from overseas and from service in WWII.

[joe_padavano]

5 minutes ago, Marty Roth said:

Lots of variance in those numbers:

Burgess, Director, Bureau of the Census, Department of Commerce. The median income of men with money incomes in 1953 was estimated at $3,200, about $100 or 4 percent greater than in 1952. The median income of women was estimated at about $1,200 in both years.Oct 8, 2021

Median income of "men with income" sounds like individual income, not household income.

[Marty Roth]

2 hours ago, joe_padavano said:

Median income of "men with income" sounds like individual income, not household income.

Yes, Joe, that's seemingly true-

 

But with all due respect, back in 1953, as I recall, most households tended to be single income-earner households. I feel pretty comfortable stating I believe most wives/mothers were stay-at-home mothers/wives. Dads worked - Moms kept house, cooked, cleaned, raised kids, shopped. It was the end of the 1950s, maybe tied to the "Eisenhower Recession" and into the 1960s when 2-income households became less of an anomaly.

Dual income households would have been the rare exception in 1953.

I was there, and so were a great many of us aging grey-beards in the hobby and on the FORUM.

I mowed lawns, washed cars, and did basic odd jobs for a bit of change then, and it wasn't until a few years later that I was able to have my newspaper routes, delivering on my bicycle for a local pharmacy, etc. The odd thing was being able to work with local adult dance bands, as long as the were playing where no alcohol was served,

Edited September 20, 2023 by Marty Roth
typo, and additional note (see edit history)

[joe_padavano]

1 hour ago, Marty Roth said:

Yes, Joe, that's seemingly true-

 

But with all due respect, back in 1953, as I recall, most households tended to be single income-earner households.

But "most" is not all. That's why the median household income is a little higher than the median male salary. The latter is per male worker. The former is per household.

 

In any case, this misses the point. When people say "look at those prices", the are looking through the perspective of today's salaries. In 1953 that $200 rebuilt flathead Ford long block was quite a bit more expensive than today's $2,000 rebuilt small block Chevy long block. Median household income in 2022 was just under $75,000.

Edited September 20, 2023 by joe_padavano (see edit history)

[Rusty_OToole]

My father told me he made $11,000 in 1951 or maybe it was 1952. This was an electrician, working on construction, and working all the overtime he could get. It nearly killed him. He ended up with stomach ulcers and had to quit that job and go into something less stressful. But, when I was a kid, we still had a few things around the house from those days of prosperity like the first TV set in the neighborhood,  a record player, new furniture .

[Leif in Calif]

On 9/18/2023 at 7:02 PM, rocketraider said:

Noticed that except for Buick and Chevrolet these are all flatheads. Wonder when Sears stopped selling engines, and did their service centers install them? Also who might have rebuilt them for Sears?

 

Yup. Sears, JC Penney and Montgomery Ward pretty much invented catalog shopping and mail order. They didn't adapt quickly enough and by the time they did Amazon had become the 800-lb gorilla of internet shopping and mail order.

 

I miss Sears and the others. I simply do not like Amazon and avoid it as much as possible. Might be because I like putting my own eyes and hands on what I'm spending my money on.

I  have a reprint of the 1897 Sears catalog. It's 786 pages and has everything you might need in life, from baby clothes to head stones. 

[Frank DuVal]

And houses!

[rocketraider]

There's a Sears house a few miles over in the village of Milton. You can still see some of the numbers on timbers in the attic and basement. Came in on railroad cars.

 

Yup. If they'd been quicker to adapt and could have kept that rapacious hedge fund manager away, Sears would still be with us. Probably not selling engines though!

[8E45E]

Why bother with a rebuilt engine when you could have also bought a brand new car from Sears in 1953??

 

 

Craig

[Frank DuVal]

Well, the engine was cheaper then the Allstate!

[8E45E]

7 hours ago, Frank DuVal said:

Well, the engine was cheaper than the Allstate!

Once you bought the engine, you had work to do!!! They didn't come to your door with an installation elf inside!

 

The Allstate would have been the first Sears car that WAS 'ready to roll', unlike the much earlier Motor Buggy, which also came to one's doorstep in a crate:     Orphan of the Day, 12-12, 1952 Allstate - Studebaker Drivers Club Forum

 

Craig

[LARRYCAROL]

I remember Sears also selling VW air cooled & later water cooled engines . That was into 1970s!  We shopped at  Sears all the time and I remember looking at motorcycles at Sear store in Paterson NJ in early 1960s. 

[DLynskey]

Western Auto also sold rebuilt engines in the 1960's.

 

Don

[8E45E]

1 hour ago, DLynskey said:

Western Auto also sold rebuilt engines in the 1960's.

 

Don

As did Eaton's departments stores in Canada.

 

Craig

[TerryB]

There was a Vespa scooter sold as an Allstate Sears unit too.  Sears sold nearly everything under the sun.

[TexRiv_63]

When I built my first car, a 1955 Ford Victoria, a large amount of the parts needed came from the the Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs: Rebuilt transmission, clutch kit, floor shifter, rebuilt starter and generator (12 volt conversion) and more. Another amount came from other catalogs - Warshawski's and J.C. Whitney. I lived in the Chicago suburbs and could go into the city and pick their stuff up at the Warshawski's store.

[Buffalowed Bill]

$200 in 1953 theoretically would buy what $2295 would buy you today. Those were the days when manufactured goods were expensive and labor was relatively cheap. Things, like engines, could be rebuilt with surprisingly minimal value added by labor costs. Today the tables have been turned labor is expensive and components, many of which come from overseas are cheap. 

 

Most of these old rebuilds didn't require the high tech rebuild that machinery today requires. The flip side is that today's engines usually don't wear out before the car is disposed of. There are fewer and fewer machinists working on automotive stuff because of limited need. Lack of competition has pushed to cost of machining ever higher. There are no more rebuilding production lines where dozens of the same crankshaft etc. can be machined to the same standards without any regard to individual differences.

 

When was the last time anyone reading this even considered rebuilding a modern car or truck engine? For most I bet it's been a while.