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Yeah they do have some awesome stuff!! I love their commentary, too. mrs chewy got me a big bag of eyeballs and some dental instruments for stocking stuffer last xmas.
Huh. Why is it that whenever I see a new cool retail site, my first reaction is to order a print catalog? Is it because I'm old-fashioned? Just plain old? Or are print catalogs still better?
I try to visit one of the Chicagoland locations once or twice a year just because it's so damn weird and fun to browse. The descriptions on the the little cards by each item are priceless. And some of the uses they can come up with for seemingly useless items are stunning. The whole place is like Mister Wizzard's giant junk drawer. I wish I had the know-how to actually use more of what they sell.
There used to be a strong connection between AS&S and Archie McPhee: when you got one of their catalogs, the other company would send you theirs. As in: shared mailing lists. This was back in the 1980s.
Many of the neat-o items at AS&S are by Accoutrements, the Archie McPhee manufacturing subsidary. McPhee came first, ran out of distressed novelty goods, set up Accoutrements as a vertical supplier and now the relationship has flipped so that McPhee is the minor concern and Accoutrements does more volumen outside of McPhee than with them.
This is great, another thing to add to my favorites. *sigh* My favorites are taking over, thanks to all you generous people. Now if you'll excuse me, I must peruse.
Oh, and JanetLand? I totally agree with you. I like a cataloge I can hold in my hand, fold corners on, and go back to.
I love love love them too, I want the Swiss Army surplus mule branding kit so bad I'm trembling, (bottom of the page.)
I love catalogs made by smart, crazy people. I bought a handful of Mother Earth News (homesteading magazine) from the seventies recently and have been idly reading them cover to cover and creating elaborate homesteading fantasies out of them, so many ads for seeds and wood stoves and Red Zinger tea, there is even a bizzare murder story that develops across a few issues that I've been meaning to post about.
Between AS&S, Lindsay's Technical Books, your local hardware store, and your local dump, you should be well-prepared for whatever truly terrible and horrifically dangerous ideas occur to you. [And yeah, the real catalogues are so much better than the internet versions.]
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
