Fingerhut

Zayre, not Zaire. Ugh!

The interest rates on their "low payments" were/are at loan-shark levels.

A Fingerhut catalog in the mail let the mailman know you had bad credit.

Almost as fancy as ordering out of the back of Grit.

I ordered from Fingerhut thinking that their higher prices were in lieu of interest payments. I was wrong. I furnished a bedroom through these folks, got crappy furniture and ended up paying through the roof.

Their is zero reason to order from these crooks unless you have bad credit. Which I did.

My mentally ill sister loved buying from the Fingerhut catalogue.

In German, Fingerhut is a plant! It translates to 'finger hat'.

R4 Grit! My mother loved that rag and it's frugal recipes & hints-- "8 ways to use stale bread"

Two Memories of Fingerhut-

1. The catalog occasionally came with a teaspoon attached to it to get you to buy silverware. I think sometimes, the spoon was engraved with the recipient's initial. We had a drawer full of them when I was growing up. They were the ones the kids were allowed to use.

2. My friend in college very nearly dropped out of school to marry a guy who all of us thought was maybe the trashiest person in America. One of the many creditors he was constantly running from was Fingerhut. He owed them over $1,000...and this was in the early 90s. There was a special way you had to call his house if you wanted to talk to her (again, this was the 90s.) It was like call, ring twice, hang up, call again. That way he knew it wasn't fucking Fingerhut collections call him. We finally convinced her not to marry him based solely on this. Do you want your life to be constantly running from Fingerhut?

Grit was for folks that found Reader’s Digest intimidating.

[quote]1. The catalog occasionally came with a teaspoon attached to it to get you to buy silverware.

Are you sure it wasn't for coke?

Fingerhut was basically the rent a center of catalog shopping

My Navy dad was a piece of shit who only gave my mom $200 a month in the late 80's and early 90's to feed, clothe, entertain 4 kids while he was away burning money on (probably ladyboy) hookers and booze in Thailand, so yes Christmas shopping came from the Fingerhut catalogue.

All I remember is a lot of White Wolf and Indian Maiden art on throws, quilts,wall art...

I had forgotten about their ridiculous interest rates.

Wow, I just googled them. THEY ARE STILL AROUND! Ridiculous.

We did have a set of the "monogrammed" silverware (the ENTIRE set). For pure nostalgia (in remembrance of my mom) I've kept 4 dinner forks, 4 salad/dessert forks, 4 knives, 4 table/teaspoons. They are my everyday use silverware. They've held up quite well through the years (I HATE to admit). LOL

I preferred Lillian Vernon.

r16 OMG. Another of my mother's catalogue shopping delights!

Fingerfuck

^ Miles Kimball!!

I always thought the name alone was enough to make a person heave. Who would want to buy from a company called... ugh... "Fingerhut." It's just disgusting.

No love for Harriet Carter?

The poor man's Lillian Vernon.

I seem to recall the J Crew somehow formed from the family who owned Fingerhut.

I loved looking at the Fingerhut and Lillian Vernon catalogues. They were all crap, but the stuff seemed so cool when I was a kid

Is the Vermont Country Store catalogue still around? They had all the old dimestore colognes like Evening in Paris and Jungle Gardenia. Penny candy, too, I think. That catalogue was like a time machine.

[quote]Is the Vermont Country Store catalogue still around?

Oh, yes. They still have all of the finest sweaters in which to cradle your coffee.

My grandmother had the ubiquitous bisque Poodle barometer. If it did anything at all, it did it slowly. As it probably should.

But when I was six years old, I wanted to see it in action. And the g.d. poodle thwarted me. Every time.

The Vermont Country Store -- check out the link about the men who own it. The aroma of fresh baked cookies is in the air!

Hmmm.... No mention of wives or kids in any of those bios.

Thumbs up!!!

I remember ordering something from them once and my sister saw the box from Fingerhut and thought I had bought sex toys.

r27 that's a fine looking group of rugged menfolk!

[quote]I preferred Lillian Vernon.

I enjoyed her short-lived TV show.

I've heard and read several times over the years that the fragrances and shampoos that Vermont Country Store sells are nothing like the originals. Has anyone had experience purchasing a vintage drugstore brand from them?

BTW, the mention of Fingerhut reminds me of having my first apartment and feeling so grown up to get that magazine, International Male, Undergear, and 'People' magazine. This was the late 90s, and I'd spread all the catalogues out on my coffee table to flip through them. Even as a 19 year-old I knew Fingerhut was a rip-off, though.

Another old fave ...

I got on their mailing list many years ago somehow. Never once requested a catalog or ordered anything from them. Their product line for the most part was cheap crap with extraordinarily high prices.

There was a Frau at work who was always doing bulk orders for people from this company, with the now unfortunate name.

Don't you know someone who'd just LOVE this?

Or this?

My mom used to get all those weird catalogs in the 80s. Fingerhut, Walter Drake, Harriet Carter, Lillian Vernon, Old Pueblo Traders, Swiss Colony. As a kid, I thought some of their products seemed so glamorous, like the lucite cube with your initials on it filled with tiny note papers.

Or the small lucite tree you'd put on your coffee table with cubes of cheese stuck to all the branches and crackers nestled beneath? Elegant!