Bankruptcy a sad footnote for Sears, the Amazon of its day

For at least a century, Sears was the go-to retailer for the American shopper. Whether it was Craftsman tools, Diehard batteries, Kenmore washers and dryers or Kings Road slacks, Sears provided. The goods weren't flashy, but they were affordable and made to last.

The bulky Sears catalog, which debuted in the 1890s, was revered by shoppers, who couldn't wait for it to show up in the mail. In fact, I received a message on my LinkedIn page over the weekend from a teacher in California who had read about Sears' bankruptcy filing in our North American edition.

"I used the thick Sears catalog to learn English," she wrote. "When I was a child in Vietnam during the war, somebody gave me a Sears catalog because I love to read - I didn't know the catalog's purpose was for ordering merchandise. I used it to learn English. It was very effective with pictures. Oh, how I love that thick Sears catalog."