Defunct Store Cards
Description: In 1906 the first "W. T. Grant Co. 25 Cent Store" opened in Lynn, Massachusetts. Modest profit, coupled with a fast turnover of inventory, allowed the stores to grow to almost $100 million annual sales by 1936. By the time Grant died in 1972 at age 96, his chain of W. T. Grant Stores had grown to almost 1,200. At the company's end, headquarters were atop One Astor Plaza, a prominent building of New York City's skyline on Times Square. Grant's stores were slower than others to adapt to the growth of the suburbs and the change in shopping habits that this entailed, and the attempt to correct this was belated. W. T. Grant's bankruptcy in 1976, which was the then-second biggest in US history.
Description: Remembering Younkers Department Store. Younkers was adepartment store chain founded as a family-run dry goods business in 1856 in Keokuk, Iowa. In 1899 the Younker brothers' main store in downtown Des Moines was moved to 7th and Walnut Streets, and it operated at the same location for 106 years before closing on August 12, 2005. The downtown Des Moines store became known for its Tea Room restaurant, which opened in 1913 and closed shortly before the store did. It also installed Iowa's first escalator, known as the "electric stairs," in 1939.
Description: Old Town Records was a record label set up by Hy Weiss in New York City. It operated between 1953 and 1966, and was responsible for several R&B and doo-wop hit records. Weiss, who was born in Romania, lived in the Bronx from the 1920s, and began working as a furrier. In the mid-1940s, with his brother Sam, he started distributing records produced in California by Leon René, soon expanding into distributing records by other companies including Modern and Apollo. In 1953, he set up his own label, Old Town, taking its name, and its early stationery, from that of a wholesale paper business in Brooklyn for whom Weiss worked.
Description: Remembering the great Abraham & Straus Department Store. Officially Abraham & Straus but everybody just called it A & S. They had a number of different logos over the years but this is my favorite. The company's 841,000-square-foot Brooklyn flagship store was located at 422 Fulton Street in Downtown Brooklyn. In 2003, the Brooklyn Heights Association and the Municipal Art Society put the building on a list of 28 historic buildings in downtown Brooklyn that needed to be protected.
Abraham & Straus. A & S. Department Store. Brooklyn, NY Card
by Nostalgia Place
$5.00 $6.00
AUTO PALACE 'You Need It- We Speed It' Defunct Automotive Parts Store Card
by DarkLordPug
$5.00 $6.00
Description: Remembering Sibley’s Department Store. Sibley, Lindsay & Curr Company, known informally as Sibley's, was a Rochester, New York-based department store chain with stores located exclusively in the state of New York. Its flagship store was at 228 East Main Street in downtown Rochester and at 1.1 million square feet it was the largest department store between New York City and Chicago. Sibley's is fondly remembered as the premier department store in upstate New York.
Description: Remembering Ivey's Department Store. Charlotte, North Carolina. JB Ivey & Company (commonly known as Ivey’s) was the premier department store in the Carolinas for nearly a century.
Ivey's Department Store, Charlotte, North Carolina. Card
by Nostalgia Place
$5.00 $6.00
Description: Remembering Gottschalks Department Store. Gottschalks was a American department store chain that operated 58 department stores and three specialty apparel stores in six western states (California, Washington, Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Nevada). Gottschalks was founded by Emil Gottschalk in 1904 as a dry goods store in downtown Fresno, California. Gottschalks gained success by locating only in smaller cities that could not support full-size national department stores.
Description: Remembering Hecht’s Department Store. Washington DC and Baltimore Maryland. Hecht's was a large chain of department stores that operated mainly in the mid-Atlantic area. The firm originated in Baltimore in 1860. And then in 1896 Hecht’s opened a store in Washington DC, which eventually moved to a grand glass and marble store at the corner of 7th and F Streets Northwest in 1925. By 2005, Hecht's had some 81 stores in Maryland, Washington DC, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The family-owned business made customers a top priority and believed in a personalized shopping experience.
Hecht's Department Store - Washington DC and Baltimore, Maryland Card
by Nostalgia Place
$5.00 $6.00
Description: Founded by Donald E. Frederick and Nels B. Nelson in 1891, Frederick & Nelson was known as Seattle’s premier department store. The business expanded to include home delivery of goods, a tea room, and ready-to-wear men’s and women’s fashions, a great deal of which was very much on-trend and from upscale designers. The owners built a reputation for elegance and customer service that was beyond compare in the Seattle area. The Christmas season at Frederick & Nelson was a very special time with stunning window displays, over-the-top decorations, and numerous events held in-store to celebrate the season. This early '60s design is reminiscent of the great holidays of the past that are now just a memory from a long-gone Seattle icon.
Description: Carson Pirie Scott & Co. (CSP) was an American department store founded in 1854, which grew to over 50 locations, primarily in the Midwest. The chain began in 1854 when Samuel Carson and John Thomas Pirie first clerked in Murray's Dry Goods in Peru, Illinois, then opened their own store in LaSalle, followed by one in Amboy. John Edwin Scott ran a dry goods store in Ottawa, Illinois, and later moved up to Chicago as a partner in creating CSP. When Schlesinger & Mayer went bankrupt in 1904, CSP bought their store at 1 South State Street on the corner of East Madison in 1904. The grand building would become CSP's flagship store for 114 years until the CSP closed down in 2018.
Description: Greek immigrant Christy Mihos opened the first market in Brockton, MA during 1934. By the 1960's, Peter & James Mihos underwent an expansion by opening multiple convenience locations. During the 1970's, brothers Jim & Christy (grandson of the original Christy) began operating the chain, performing their own further expansion by acquiring the Sunny Corner Farms convenience chain. With locations in Massachusetts, Rhode Island & Connecticut, Christy's Markets operated approximately 144 convenience store locations at its peak. By 1998, the Mihos family sold essentially all their locations to the 7-Eleven Corporation. Shortly thereafter, Christy bought nine of their locations back, and rebranded these locations "Christy's of Cape Co...
Christy's Markets (Version 2: distressed) - Mass / Rhode Island / Connecticut Card
by MASS MEMORIES
$5.00 $6.00
Description: C.J. Gayfer migrated to Mobile, Alabama, from Southwold, England after the Civil War and opened a department store bearing his name in downtown Mobile in 1879. By the time of his death in 1915, Gayfer's employed 150 people, averaged over $500,000 in annual sales, and Gayfer had become well known for his philanthropy and was one of the earliest proponents of employee benefits. Gayfer's expanded into the Western Gulf States in the early '60s, and by the end of the '70s, Gayfer's was becoming one of the largest department store chains in the Southern US. The apostrophe in the company name was eventually dropped, rebranding as Gayfers until the chain's closing in 1998.
Description: Remembering L. S. Ayres Department Store. L. S. Ayres and Company was based in Indianapolis, Indiana, and founded in 1872 by Lyman S. Ayres. Over the years its Indianapolis flagship store, which opened in 1905 and was later enlarged, became known for its women's fashions, the Tea Room, holiday events and displays, and the basement budget store. A long-time Ayres slogan, "That Ayres Look", promoted the company as a fashion leader, and by 1972 it had become the oldest continuous retail slogan in the United States.
L. S. Ayres Department Store. Indianapolis, Indiana Card
by Nostalgia Place
$5.00 $6.00
