This Catalog was the Amazon.Com of my youth. I bought many gadgets, puzzles,pins,badges. They accepted postage stamps in payment.The catalog was free. My paper route earnings paid for a lot of goodies.
Sears had an anniversary catalog out sometime in the '60's showing 1900's products and prices. Got one for my Step-dad for Christmas one year. He enjoyed it as well as myself.
I've never heard of the Johnson/Smith catalogue, either. But like Ken, I waited each year for the Sears Christmas catalogue to show up. There are several websites where old Sears Wish Books and other catalogs can be viewed. @Lon Tanner , apparently Johnson/Smith still exists... CLICK!!
Johnson/Smith & Co. was located in Detroit, Michigan when I was a kid. My Dad introduced me to it via their stupendous catalog, which was approximately comic-book sized, about 1 inch thick. Thousands of items offered not to be found anywhere else. I bought my Big Bang carbide cannon from them. They shipped Calcium Carbide, a rather dangerous stuff to be sure, in sealed metal tins. Calcium Carbide produces extremely flammable gas, Acetylene, the source of the cannon's "bang", when wetted with plain water. For history of the toy cannon, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big-Bang_Cannon Of course, I quickly figured out I could shoot glass marbles out of the thing! Frank
I forgot to include the old-time miners' lamps, lit by burning acetylene gas. The calcium carbide, in small lumps, was placed in the bottom can, which was screwed onto the top container which held the water. Rate of dripping water onto the carbide below was adjusted by a lever on top. When these lamps were still in use, explosions in underground mines were common, as methane gas often seeped from the surroundings, and could be explosively ignited by the flame of a miner's helmet-mounted lamp. Methane is actually plain, old Natural Gas. A French manufactured acetylene gas lamp, of circa 1910, mounted on a bicycle. Advertisement for home acetylene gas lighting, 1922