taken by Forrest Flanders, owner of the Old Catalogs website. Used by permission.
The Johnson Smith Company had a novelty catalog with the standard hand buzzers, wind-up clacking teeth, X-ray specs, puzzle boxes, Chinese finger traps, and much more.
They also had a section dedicated to the paranormal. That is what I focused on.
I got a year older and processed the clues that these products were not as profound or exotic as they seemed, but I didn’t care. This was before the internet and cable television, so reading those product descriptions in the catalog launched my imagination into vaguely transgressive secrets and faraway destinations. Ancient and Modern Magic. Not many years later I was in Tangier, Morocco and remembered this for some reason, like I had finally made it. But that’s a story for another time.
Below are examples of things I ordered. These are not my actual items because I told dad he could sell them at the Flea Market.
“My main interest in these astral visions is not the veracity of the subject; it’s in the way people write about them, whether it’s Pliny the Younger, M. R. James, or a floating mummy novelty in a Johnson Smith Catalog. “ – Bill Ectric, Billograph