Thursday, August 6, 2009
Lost Memphis Bry's Department Store's 1927 "Sporting Goods"
Posted by Vance Lauderdale on Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 10:49 AM
But I recently turned up a 1927 newspaper advertisement for the store's sporting goods department, and just look at the amazing selection. If you have trouble reading the ad, let me just mention a few of the items for sale, and their 1927 prices:
Spalding golf clubs (irons) — $3.50
Spalding golf clubs (woods) — $5.00
Narragansett Livewood tennis racquets — $2.95
Louisville Slugger baseball bats — $1.85
League baseballs — $1.25
Shakespeare automatic fly reel — $4.50
... and lots more
Golf bags came in "all sizes" with the prices starting at just a dollar and stretching all the way to $45, which was a stupendous amount of money to spend on a golf bag in the 1920s. For you, I mean, not for me.
Note that they also sold a baseball glove called the "Dazzy Vance" (a fine name indeed) for the rather steep price of $8.50. Nothing with the Lauderdale name on it ever came cheap, I assure you.
The entire bottom half of the page is devoted to a line of automobile tires — a product not normally found in a sporting goods department, but hey this was Bry's. The brand was called Defiance, and the ad noted that it was a "a challenge" as to "quality, mileage, traction, economy, safety, and price." Now, at first this wording didn't make sense to me, since it seemed to be saying the tire did NOT offer these things. But read further, and you'll see that Bry's is saying, "We challenge comparison between the super Defiance tire and any other type, brand, or description of tire manufactured in America."
Whew, that's quite a challenge. Of course, they don't say what they'll do if their tire fails to meet that challenge (and how do you challenge another tire's "description," anyway?), though they do promise it should last 25,000 miles, which was a pretty good guarantee, I think, for a 1927 tire.
It's odd, though, that they don't mention the price of these "super" tires.
Now, if anybody turns up a "Dazzy Vance" baseball glove in their attics, or on eBay, please let me know. I'll be glad to autograph it for you.
Comments (6)
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My son's name is Bry, but we didn't name him after the department store.
The ad is for the New Bry's. What happened to the Old Bry's?
And what happened to Bry's, old and new?
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I wrote about Bry's last year in my regular magazine column, but it was terribly confusing. Bry's opened on Main Street and then moved into a five-story building a few blocks away and became known (officially and unofficially) as New Bry's. Now, one of those buildings then became Lowenstein's, but I never could tell which one (the newspaper articles of the day just assumed everyone knew, and both buildings looked about the same to me), and I finally just gave up on it.
At any rate, one of those buildings is still standing today, but it's either offices or condos. I just don't know, and it gives me a migraine to try to figure it out.
Maybe this is why people don't talk about Bry's so much anymore.
My grandma worked at Lowenstein's for a number of years. I never heard her mention Bry's. But I'm going to ask her. Knowing her very well, she would have worked at Bry's if they had a better employee discount. She's almost 100!
I am now simply fascinated with this Bry's thing. Loving oral history due to its flagrant inaccuracy, thereby leaving room to take monumental liberties, I asked a near centurion about this store. He remembered it as a "ladies store." He also remembered it on the right side of the street going south from the Pyramid. If I take his memory's word for things, the Lowenstein's just renovated at Court Square is on the left side of the street, thereby making the New Bry's located at the site of the "other Lowenstein's." Oh, please, do take an aspirin for that migraine and do a bit more digging. I bought your overpriced book for Pete's sake. Though I must say the reading is worth every penny.
"Overpriced book"??? Not only did I work almost two (maybe three) hours on that thing, look at all the wonderful information you are now getting FOR FREE. Regarding Bry's, if you bring Lowenstein's into the mix, then it just gets even more confusing, because you have "old" Lowenstein's and "new" Lowenstein's. The old building on the east side of Main that has recently been converted into condos is the original, or "old", Lowenstein's. The "new" Lowenstein's was built across the street, a two-story building with a 12 (or taller) apartment tower attached. That building is still standing. And if I'm not mistaken (oh, it's happened before), THAT is where Bry's used to be, though I can't remember if it's the "old" Bry's or the "new" Bry's. At any rate, they tore the Bry's building down to build Lowenstein Tower. At least I THINK so. Uh oh, another migraine coming on ...
