Description
Collector's Note – Why This Issue Matters
The 1987 Sears Wish Book for Kids is one of the most actively nostalgized objects in American consumer culture — a publication that functioned not merely as a retail catalog but as an annual ritual of childhood aspiration. For the generation of children who grew up in the 1980s, the arrival of the Sears Wish Book each autumn was among the most anticipated events of the year, preceding Christmas with the particular pleasure of systematic desire: circling items, dog-earing pages, submitting handwritten lists that drew directly from its pages. The 1987 edition arrived at the peak of one of the most commercially extraordinary toy eras in American history. The mid-to-late 1980s were the years when action figure lines, role-playing game tie-ins, and licensed entertainment properties had completely transformed the American toy market, and the Wish Book was the primary mass-market document of that transformation — cataloging what was available, what was promoted, and what an American child's imagination was being shaped toward in any given holiday season. For collectors building a record of 1980s material culture and American childhood, the Sears catalog archive provides the most comprehensive resource for tracking this institution's publishing history across the twentieth century.
The specific cultural moment of 1987 gives this Wish Book a particular collector's resonance. By 1987 the toy lines that had defined the early-to-mid decade — G.I. Joe, Transformers, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, My Little Pony, Care Bears — were either at their commercial peak or beginning their transitions, while new properties were arriving to claim their place. The Nintendo Entertainment System, introduced to American consumers in 1985, had by 1987 become the dominant consumer electronics product in the American toy market, and its presence in the 1987 Wish Book alongside traditional toy categories documents the precise moment when video games became a normalized component of the American holiday gift economy rather than a novelty. The catalog's vibrant illustrations and product descriptions — noted in the listing as intact with vivid colors — are themselves artifacts of the specific visual language of late-1980s American toy marketing: the bright saturated palettes, the action-pose photography, and the particular graphic design sensibility that made the Wish Book instantly recognizable to anyone who grew up in this era. The full range of 1987 publications provides broader context for the cultural and commercial moment this catalog documented.
Sears discontinued the general Wish Book in 1993, making the late-1980s editions among the final chapters of a publishing tradition that had run annually since 1933. The 1987 Wish Book for Kids sits near the end of that tradition's most culturally resonant era — the years when the catalog reached the largest audiences and documented the richest toy culture the American market had ever produced.
About the Publication
The Sears Wish Book was a specialized holiday toy catalog issued annually by Sears, Roebuck and Co. as a companion to the general Fall and Winter Catalog, focused specifically on toys, games, and children's products for the Christmas season. It was first issued in 1933 and became one of the most culturally significant annual publications in American retail history, functioning for multiple generations of American children as the primary interface between Christmas aspiration and commercial reality. The Wish Book for Kids designation in the 1987 edition reflects Sears' positioning of the catalog as a child-facing publication — designed to be read and used by children themselves rather than their parents, which shaped everything from its visual presentation to its product selection and description.
Key Highlights Inside
- Action figures and licensed entertainment toy lines reflecting the mid-to-late-1980s toy market at its commercial peak — the generation of properties that defined American childhood in this era, documented in the catalog format that most American families actually used to make their holiday purchasing decisions.
- Board games, playsets, and traditional toy categories alongside the entertainment-licensed properties, capturing the full spectrum of the 1987 American toy market for collectors researching this specific holiday season.
- Video game and electronic toy content consistent with the 1987 moment when the Nintendo Entertainment System had normalized video games as a standard component of the American holiday gift economy.
- Vivid color illustrations and product photography described in the listing as intact — primary visual documentation of the specific graphic design language and product presentation conventions of late-1980s American toy marketing.
- Note: Specific product names, page-by-page category details, and confirmed interior content beyond what is documented in the listing have not been independently verified. The above reflects what is well-documented about the 1987 toy market and the Sears Wish Book format and era.
Condition & Rarity
The 1987 Sears Wish Book for Kids in excellent condition with intact pages, vibrant colors, and light wear represents the strongest available grade for a catalog that was designed to be actively used by children — a population that was not known for gentle handling of their publications. A Wish Book that survived the 1987 holiday season and nearly four subsequent decades with its color pages intact and its structure sound is a genuinely well-preserved artifact of American childhood consumer culture. The plastic protective sleeve applied to preserve the catalog limits ongoing surface oxidation and physical wear. When evaluating any surviving copy of this catalog, the primary condition factors are the completeness and color saturation of the toy photography pages — the primary research and display value of the artifact — alongside the structural integrity of the binding and the absence of significant writing, circling, or page removal that were the common forms of child-use damage in actively consulted Wish Books.
Looking for More Issues Like This?
Late-1980s Sears Wish Books in excellent condition are among the most nostalgically sought-after entries in the Sears catalog collecting category, and the 1987 edition — documenting the American toy market at one of its richest and most culturally loaded moments — draws consistent interest from both serious collectors and adults reliving their 1980s childhood. The Sears catalog collection at OriginalMagazines.com is the most comprehensive resource for finding other editions spanning the full arc of this iconic American retail institution's publishing history. Collectors building around the broader cultural and consumer landscape of 1987 will also want to explore the 1987 magazine collection, which brings together a wide range of period publications that document the style, technology, and everyday life of one of the decade's most commercially vibrant years.