[Leica] IMG: Remnant of the Past

[jhnichols at lighttube.net (Jim Nichols)]

Thanks for your comments, Nathan.? I think Sears got caught up in the 
shopping center craze. In Nashville, they had a fine store near downtown 
in the 50s and 60s which we always visited.? Then, as suburban shopping 
centers opened, they tried to open a smaller store in each of them, and 
the large store deteriorated.? In a few years, people lost interest. The 
large store was sold to the Salvation Army, which uses it as its main 
location in Nashville.

On 10/7/21 11:56 PM, Nathan Wajsman wrote:
> Jim, you must do a book of those stories some day!
>
> As for Sears, I remember shopping there quite a bit when we lived in 
> Gainesville, FL from 1984 to 1987. I still have my very first tripod, 
> bought there and branded Sears, when I took up photography as a hobby in 
> 1985.
>
> I think I was last inside a Sears a few years ago during a visit to Puerto 
> Rico. A sad, rundown appearance, clearly a place in terminal decline.
>
> Cheers,
> Nathan
>
> Nathan Wajsman
> photo at frozenlight.eu
>
> http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws
> http://www.greatpix.eu
> http://www.frozenlight.eu
>
> YNWA
>
>
>
>
>> On 5 Oct 2021, at 15:47, jshulman at judgecrater.com wrote:
>>
>> You indeed paved the way in color printing, which had been renowned for 
>> not only inaccurate color but iffy registration.  I recall seeing purple 
>> hams from K-Mart circulars, usually slightly out of register ("purple 
>> ham" became shorthand in our house for a K-Mart shopping trip.)
>>
>> In the 1980s and 1990s I was the marketing director for a catalog company 
>> that, though considerable growth, printed more than six million catalogs 
>> a year in eighteen variations.  After considering several major printing 
>> companies, including Donnelley (also famed for printing telephone 
>> directories,) we chose World Color Press, a relative newcomer that was 
>> building brand new plants around the nation.
>>
>> Our catalog was slated for production at a rural Wisconsin site, recently 
>> opened in what had been farmland.  During a tour of the facility my rep 
>> mentioned that they printed Playboy magazine, and that some potential 
>> clients refused to do business with them for that reason.  I said it sure 
>> didn't matter to us, so long as our job was done properly and on budget.  
>>  We arrived at the proofing room, with 5000K lighting for a uniform 
>> standard of judging match of the original files to printed pages.  There 
>> was a huge proofing table filled with copies of that month's centerfold, 
>> being proofed by about six ladies who could have been archetypes of 
>> Grandma from a Normal Rockwell illustration.  They were bent over the 
>> table, peering through 10X Zeiss loupes, makes sure the pubic hair was in 
>> register.
>>
>> I walked up to one of the ladies and said, "Interesting job."  Without 
>> pickup up her head she replied, "Keeps the family fed and the kids in 
>> school," with uninterrupted attention to some model's pudendum.
>>
>> When I think of all the teenage boys who were worried that mom would find 
>> the stash of Playboys hidden under the bed, I also consider that Grandma 
>> wanted to make sure they were completely satisfied.
>>
>> Jim
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: LUG <lug-bounces+jshulman=judgecrater.com at leica-users.org> On 
>> Behalf Of Brian Reid
>> Sent: Tuesday, October 5, 2021 9:23 AM
>> To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>
>> Subject: Re: [Leica] IMG: Remnant of the Past
>>
>> Sears Roebuck was a major force in advancing color printing, and was THE 
>> pioneer in digital color printing.
>>
>> By the 1960s, Sears realized that its customers expected the colors 
>> printed in its catalog to be spot-on correct. As its VP of catalog sales 
>> noted, "Your grandmother will hold the catalog up next to her curtains to 
>> see if the colors match. If they match, she will order new sofa cushions. 
>> If when the sofa cushions arrive they do not match the curtains, she will 
>> return them angrily and stop buying from Sears for a while. The colors in 
>> the catalog must be exact."
>>
>> By the time I got involved, Sears catalogs were all printed by R. R.
>> Donnelley & Sons at its printing plant on Calumet street in Chicago. RR 
>> Donnelley won and kept the contract because they were able to do a better 
>> job of printing accurate colors than the competition. My involvement was 
>> advising them on digital color separation technology so they could use 
>> 7-color presses; the classic optical separation process didn't work well 
>> past 4 colors and the filters were mind-numbingly expensive.
>>
>> When my mother buys sofa cushions by mail order, she evaluates their 
>> color using the screen on her iMac. Even if she could lift it to hold it 
>> next to her curtains, proper comparison of glowing-screen colors with 
>> fabric colors is impossible. The catalogs were better. I sometimes wish I 
>> had kept one.
>>
>>
>> On 2021-10-04 13:29, Jim Nichols wrote:
>>> As I glanced around me on a cloudy morning, I saw this reminder of the
>>> days before Amazon and other on-line sources.  Sears Roebuck, and its
>>> rival, Montgomery Ward, were the mainstay of rural America.
>>>
>>> http://www.gallery.leica-users.org/v/OldNick/20211004-DSCF3289-Enhance
>>> d.JPG.html
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-- 
Jim Nichols
Tullahoma, TN USA