For a ride in the Way-Back Machine - 1968 - S.I.R. Sporting Goods catalogue

I remember when all hardware stores in Canada had guns in racks, not even behind a counter. You still had to get a store employee to unlock them from the bunk they were in, but oh how times have changed (for the worse)

Macleod's Hardware, Parks Hardware, Allied Hardware....
 
Winchester Cooey Model 710 - Long and short action calibers - $103.50. (Anyone ever own or see one of these???)

Yes I had one for years. Bought it in the late sixties/early seventies. 270Win. Carbine. Bolt action. Internal magazine. Worked fine. Sold it a few years ago to a fellow CGN/r
 
I drooled over the old Eatons and Simpsons catalogue guns as well. My Dad bought me a Cooey 39 at the local hardware for around $12.95. I was 11 or 12. My next big purchase was a nice Cooey 84 12ga. at an auction in town. Paid around $12. Walked right across town with it. Nobody even looked at me. I was about 14 then. Good times.
 
67/68 would have been the first I had seen of an SIR catalog, BIL brought it over, spent many hours gawking at it and Gun Digests back then.
Never did order anything from SIR.
 
redryder said:
Every trip to Wpg required much time at SIR and also Farmers Supply up on Main St. Good times
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Yup, went most summer's to SIR in Winnipeg as a kid, begged my dad to take us there! Almost got out the door with a handgun crossbow, but employee made me go ask my dad, I was 12đŸ˜‚.
Forgot about farmers supply, bought my 35 Whelan brass there before they closed.
Great memories of SIR catalog!
 
This really brings back some memories. I can still remember leafing through my Dad’s as a child.

On the topic of what guns used to cost, I just picked up a Winchester Model 64A in the original box, still has hang tag and is unfired. The gun was made in 1972. The price is still written in ink on the box, $139.95. Those days are long gone.
 
Those 1968 prices don't mean anything until you know that $300 was a pretty good monthly wage, and there was little left over for guns and hunting stuff.
 
Matt74 said:
This really brings back some memories. I can still remember leafing through my Dad’s as a child.

On the topic of what guns used to cost, I just picked up a Winchester Model 64A in the original box, still has hang tag and is unfired. The gun was made in 1972. The price is still written in ink on the box, $139.95. Those days are long gone.
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That’s equivalent to 814$ Of buying power in today’s dollars.

I’ll pass on that thanks
 
"Leafing through it, I recall how, as a kid, I used to dream about owning one of the rifles in these pages."

Not just the rifles. I was a city kid, the child of city kids from England who emigrated in the 1950s. Almost everything in those catalogues fuelled a fascination with the outdoor life and it got me started on mail-order shopping, without which, in much of my lifetime, many of us had quite limited choices compared to present times.
 
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saskbooknut said:
Those 1968 prices don't mean anything until you know that $300 was a pretty good monthly wage, and there was little left over for guns and hunting stuff.
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Looking at from the other end, those prices mean a dollar was quite something back then. I have an economic theory that says when inflation has degraded your basic unit of currency to the point that 1 (e.g. dollar) can no longer purchase 1 basic unit of beer (e.g. bottle, pint,) the "good old days" are gone forever.
 
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