This blog caught my eye because I have this picture also - only I got mine when it was first in the stores.
There are a couple of things of interest going on within the glitzy gilt of this picture frame, so I hope that you'll indulge a few random thoughts. First, if you'll look in the upper right corner, you'll see that it took 20-30 years for this frame to be marked down from 88 cents to 80 at the thrift store where I got it. Second, check out the example photo - it's James Garner from his
days in the 50's TV classic "Maverick". By the way, if you haven't cast an eye across a fistful of Maverick episodes, you don't know what you're missing. Arguably TV's first anti-hero, the series made the whole enterprise of television look good, and made Garner into a national treasure... but I digress.
Check out the name of the picture frame's purveyor - "Korvettes". Korvettes was a national chain of discount department stores that pre-figure today's bargain giants like Wal-Mart. Starting out as a five and dime store, the chain eventually grew into a number of large stores, and were the first large retailers to plunge into the American suburbs in the 50's and 60's. Korvettes used innovative (some would say sneaky) approaches to discount prices (there used to be strict laws about chain stores selling products below the manufacturer's suggested retail price).
I grew up with a Korvettes store until it was replaced by Kmart in the late 70's. One unusual aspect of the Korvettes I knew was that they had a very nice electronics department in bold contrast to their other rather cheap merchandise. They were the last place I knew of that had listening booths to let you preview a record before you bought it. Check out this commercial for Korvettes that focuses on their large assortment of electronic goodies. I spotted a number of products that we've covered here on Retro Thing, but no sign of my cheapie Maverick picture frame.
There are a couple of things of interest going on within the glitzy gilt of this picture frame, so I hope that you'll indulge a few random thoughts. First, if you'll look in the upper right corner, you'll see that it took 20-30 years for this frame to be marked down from 88 cents to 80 at the thrift store where I got it. Second, check out the example photo - it's James Garner from his
days in the 50's TV classic "Maverick". By the way, if you haven't cast an eye across a fistful of Maverick episodes, you don't know what you're missing. Arguably TV's first anti-hero, the series made the whole enterprise of television look good, and made Garner into a national treasure... but I digress.Check out the name of the picture frame's purveyor - "Korvettes". Korvettes was a national chain of discount department stores that pre-figure today's bargain giants like Wal-Mart. Starting out as a five and dime store, the chain eventually grew into a number of large stores, and were the first large retailers to plunge into the American suburbs in the 50's and 60's. Korvettes used innovative (some would say sneaky) approaches to discount prices (there used to be strict laws about chain stores selling products below the manufacturer's suggested retail price).
I grew up with a Korvettes store until it was replaced by Kmart in the late 70's. One unusual aspect of the Korvettes I knew was that they had a very nice electronics department in bold contrast to their other rather cheap merchandise. They were the last place I knew of that had listening booths to let you preview a record before you bought it. Check out this commercial for Korvettes that focuses on their large assortment of electronic goodies. I spotted a number of products that we've covered here on Retro Thing, but no sign of my cheapie Maverick picture frame.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_b.png?x-id=0d231a82-0a70-47f6-93d4-3ff0e691094a)
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