Brand Names - Buffalo Stories Archives & Blog

Buffalo in the ’80s: Electronic games from Hengerer’s, Brand Names

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Long before the days of smartphones and tablets, kids from toddlers to teens got their fill of electronic gaming not on iPhones and Kindles, but from Merlin and Simon.

Buffalo News archives

Just before Christmas 1981, Hengerer’s downtown store devoted a special section to electronic games, and it was enough to get News photographers in the door to check out the latest in what every kid wanted under the tree.

Buffalo News archives

If you got one of these games, even if you did scope it out live in the store — you likely circled it in your Brand Names catalog, too, just to make sure Santa knew whether you wanted the Coleco or Mattel hockey game.

Buffalo Stories archive

According to these pages from the 1980 Brand Names catalog, most of these games cost between $35 and $50, which according to US Labor Department statistics, would cost between $101 and $144 in 2016 dollars.

Buffalo in the ’70s: Were your catalogs from Brand Names or Century?

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Century Housewares was a Hamburg-based chain of catalog stores, very similar to Brand Names. Shoppers would find items they wanted in a catalog, and then fill out slips of paper to hand to a clerk, who would then call back into the warehouse to retrieve the goods.

Buffalo News archives

This 1978 photo was taken at the store adjacent to the company’s warehouse and headquarters on Southwestern Boulevard.

Buffalo Stories archive

In 1964, Century Housewares had eight stores in Western New York. By 1975, Century had 39 catalog stores in five states. The last Century location closed its doors in 1983.

The Golden Age of Buffalo’s Great Retailers

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

BUFFALO, NY – The outpouring was amazing.

After agreeing to give a lecture at Buffalo’s Forest Lawn Cemetery about some of the city’s great retailers of the past, I was deluged with people offering up their memories, and thirsty for the memories of the stores of Buffalo’s grand old stores.

Consider this page a taste of the Golden Age of Buffalo Retailing talk that’s been seen by thousands of Western New Yorkers (and can become a part of your next meeting or event. )

Take a stroll down memory lane, and play some classic jingles while looking over some images of Buffalo’s by-gone retailers.