Talk:Sears Modern Homes

Highlights for Did You Know?

Sears Catalog Homeswere ready-to-assemble houses which were sold by mail order by Sears Roebuck and Company. Families could open a catalog, select and visualize their new home, dream, save, and then purchase it. Sears offered mortgage financing, assembly instructions, and guarantees. Shipped via railroad boxcars, many were assembled by the new homeowners and a few friends, relatives, and neighbors, in a fashion similar to traditional barn raisings. Over 100,000 of 447 different models to suit tastes and budgets were sold from 1908-1940.

I'd go with either a shortened version of boxcar, or a shortened version of 100k. Something like:

• • ...that Sears Catalog Homes were shipped via railroad boxcars and assembled in a fashion similar to traditional barn raisings?
  • ...that from 1908 to 1940, over 100,000 of the 447 different models for Sears Catalog Homes were sold in the United States?

 BRIAN0918  17:55, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This page says "Over 70,000 of these were sold in North America between 1908 and 1940" but Sears, Roebuck and Company#Sears catalog homes says "In 1908, the company began ... and by the time the program ended in 1940, over 100,000 had been sold". Should this inconsistency be rectified? AdamFunk (talk) 13:31, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Adam, that count should be rectified. The actual numbers appear to be about 60,000-65,000. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.53.215.159 (talk) 10:20, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Renaming

I'm thinking this article should be moved, unless "Sears Catalog Homes" was the actual name of the division, in which case that should be clarified in the lead section. If not, the article should definitely be moved to a singular (eg "home"), possibly lowercasing Catalog and Home, and replacing "home" with "house".... Maybe it would be easiest to simply move the article to "Sears Modern Homes", which, according to the article, is what they were sold as (although you might still replace Homes with home/house, and Sears with Sears, Roebuck) -- BRIAN0918  17:55, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Also, the lead section needs to be shortened. Maybe its contents can be implemented in the proper places later in the article. -- BRIAN0918  18:30, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

OK:

1. I will work on the lead. 2. I think that shortened to singular Sears Catalog Home best fits current terminology and WP naming conventions. 3. the second blurb above for DUI is better than the first. Method of shipping and erecting isn't as significant as how many and when. 4. The Roebuck part of the name works fine explained in the article, the shorter Sears is the naming convention used in other WP articles, and by the subject itself in modern times.

Vaoverland 20:15, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good. I'll submit the 2nd one to DYK. -- BRIAN0918  20:20, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Inflation adjusted prices

The figures are from the calculator at: http://www.westegg.com/inflation/ which is largely based on the Consumer Price Index. There are other ways of measuring inflation however and maybe this is not the best for houses? It's better than nothing for now at least. I rounded to the nearest 100. Espermike 07:32, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Asphalt burns.

Asphalt had the added incentive of being fireproof.

    Asphalt, being a petroleum product, burns quite well

Thanks, I deleted the sentence in question. Vaoverland 00:40, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)

Photo?

It would be great if someone could take a picture of a still standing SCH for this article... --Jfruh (talk) 19:47, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm in the process of finding some photos or, if need be, taking some myself.Studiofox 00:04, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I just added one, located in Diaz Creek along route 47.Wikited (talk) 01:31, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

GA Re-Review and In-line citations

Members of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles are in the process of doing a re-review of current Good Article listings to ensure compliance with the standards of the Good Article Criteria. (Discussion of the changes and re-review can be found here). A significant change to the GA criteria is the mandatory use of some sort of in-line citation (In accordance to WP:CITE) to be used in order for an article to pass the verification and reference criteria. Currently this article does not include in-line citations. It is recommended that the article's editors take a look at the inclusion of in-line citations as well as how the article stacks up against the rest of the Good Article criteria. GA reviewers will give you at least a week's time from the date of this notice to work on the in-line citations before doing a full re-review and deciding if the article still merits being considered a Good Article or would need to be de-listed. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us on the Good Article project talk page or you may contact me personally. On behalf of the Good Articles Project, I want to thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into working on this article and improving the overall quality of the Wikipedia project. --- The Bethling^(Talk) 22:50, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Good article review

This article is currently at Good Article Review. Teemu08 00:37, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Blueprints

Does anyone know where original blueprints for these homes can be found? Is there an archive somewhere on the Internet that could be included in the external links section? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.204.204.89 (talk) 14:43, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Sears house blueprints are very rare and none are available online, unforunately.

Ann Arbor Kit Homes

Wikipedia editors deleted the Wiki page that documented the number of kit homes in Ann Arbor. If you undo the edit again, I'll simply remove the number and placehold it with a note indicating why there's no number.Kithousefans (talk) 21:16, 15 October 2013 (UTC)