The Oct. 1989 Best Buy ad

[Rihan]

The ad is huge so a whole page wouldn't fit on my scanner, but most of it is there. I personally like the CD sale on the back page :D If you want to see a part of the ad that is cut off, let me know and I'll rescan it.

http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/9063/bbad1989122uf.th.jpg (http://img168.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bbad1989122uf.jpg)
Price on the stereo on the left side is $699.99 :lol:

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/4436/bbad198921xc.th.jpg (http://img175.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bbad198921xc.jpg)

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/192/bbad198932by.th.jpg (http://img175.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bbad198932by.jpg)

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/3999/bbad198948mp.th.jpg (http://img175.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bbad198948mp.jpg)

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/1338/bbad198958xy.th.jpg (http://img175.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bbad198958xy.jpg)

http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/4918/bbad198965dz.th.jpg (http://img247.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bbad198965dz.jpg)

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/521/bbad198976py.th.jpg (http://img175.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bbad198976py.jpg)

http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/3111/bbad198989fv.th.jpg (http://img168.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bbad198989fv.jpg)

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/4562/bbad198998ji.th.jpg (http://img175.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bbad198998ji.jpg)

http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/6083/bbad1989100xo.th.jpg (http://img247.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bbad1989100xo.jpg)

http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/1733/bbad1989113cw.th.jpg (http://img247.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bbad1989113cw.jpg)

http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/586/bbad1989122cs.th.jpg (http://img168.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bbad1989122cs.jpg)

http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/2483/bbad1989130bb.th.jpg (http://img247.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bbad1989130bb.jpg)

http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/996/bbad1989147bd.th.jpg (http://img247.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bbad1989147bd.jpg)

http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/3199/bbad1989154hs.th.jpg (http://img247.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bbad1989154hs.jpg)

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/1654/bbad1989163rb.th.jpg (http://img175.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bbad1989163rb.jpg)
Yes, Best Buy sold watches.

[Purkeynator]

I like the wood tv's and the $600 VCR. As usual Sony leads in the high price department. You can get and RCA for $340 less! Oh yeah and I like the massive 40MB hard drive on that packard bell pc.

[coolcps]

good fun

[Rihan]

I like the wood tv's and the $600 VCR. As usual Sony leads in the high price department. You can get and RCA for $340 less! Oh yeah and I like the massive 40MB hard drive on that packard bell pc.

Don't forget the 640K of RAM....Noone will EVER need more then that ;)

[Dr Mario Kart]

For some reason, the price of a new range hasnt changed in all these years

[spmahn]

Jeez, this is at least a good 10 years before Best Buy expanded into the Northeast. Even now, the company is still pretty thinly spread out up here.

[Limegreen]

Holy shit $1000 but top of the line packard bell is that price B&M too or just online ?

[dracula]

remember this is before it was possible to cheaply manufacture computer parts.

[GizmoGC]

Damn.
The frontpage...a VCR that reads barcodes to program itself? WTF?

[anomynous]

$600 for a VCR? I'll take 3

[6669]

thanx speedy! :lol:

[2poor]

Wow. That thing is as old as I am.

[Jeoff]

That's awesome.

[botticus]

Haha, Packard Bell.

[Kirin Lemon]

Everything I have to say about this ad I already said in person last June. But it's still awesome.

[Roufuss]

Shrike probably remembers this ad like it was yesterday.

[DMFunk]

haha, there's a game called "Pocket Rockets" Advertised :D :lol:

[crazytalkx]

:lol: Great find OP! Crazy how everything has shrunk over the years.

[guyver2077]

man how the hell did you get t his

[guyver2077]

wow store hours hasnt changed much either..

and watches? wtf

[tgk2044]

think Circuit City will price match those CDs and LPs? i've been waiting 16 years to pick up the Boston LP.

[mvick288]

I think this BELONGS in the DEAL GRAVEYARD!!

[whoknows]

:lol: Pocket Rockets for $31.99

I think I have that game somewhere around here

[iamthekiller]

Today all of this is completely worthless shit. Save this week's Bestbuy ad and look at it again in 20 years and see that everything that people covet so badly today is again useless garbage in the near future.

[help1]

Today all of this is completely worthless shit. Save this week's Bestbuy ad and look at it again in 20 years and see that everything that people covet so badly today is again useless garbage in the near future.

I didn't realize.

[Plac1d]

I have that crock-pot! In fact, I have stew sitting inside of it right now. I'm the ultimate cheapass: a $9 crock-pot has kept me fed for 17 years.

[Rig]

I had fun reading through that. Thanks, OP!

[prmononoke]

think Circuit City will price match those CDs and LPs? i've been waiting 16 years to pick up the Boston LP.

Shit, I was gonna say something similar to that. Regardless, the employee reaction would be fun if one were to try to pricematch with this ad.

[CaoPi]

no GGC's back then huh? :lol:

[slidecage]

Damn.
The frontpage...a VCR that reads barcodes to program itself? WTF?


i still have one of those bar code readers . the tv guide used to list these bar codes and you took the wand and scan it over the barcode and the vcr would turn itself on and tape the program and then turn itself off.

was a neat feature for its time

[Kendro]

A shame there aren't shots of NES and Genesis games. Good fun, thanks OP.

[prmononoke]

i still have one of those bar code readers . the tv guide used to list these bar codes and you took the wand and scan it over the barcode and the vcr would turn itself on and tape the program and then turn itself off.

was a neat feature for its time

Thats like a very primitive DVR.

[Zing]

Jeez, this is at least a good 10 years before Best Buy expanded into the Northeast. Even now, the company is still pretty thinly spread out up here.

Odd. We had Best Buy come to our quaint little Ohio town in 1994.

[trunks982]

i thought best buy came out around 2000

[adidas]

I would like to see vintage CIrcuit City ads and more of best buy my two favorite stores.

[Rihan]

i thought best buy came out around 2000

Best Buy as you know it has been around since the early 80s, however the original company that it started out as has been around since the 60s. It was originaly just a chain of music stores called Sound of Music based out of the St. Paul, MN area. This ad is actualy from the year Best Buy first started using the yellow price tag logo we've come to know.

man how the hell did you get t his

My grandpa used to have a huge wherehouse full of stuff he had gathered from his years and years of being a carpenter. We were cleaning it out over the summer and I found a cabinet with an old Fargo-Moorhead Forum newspaper and this was in it. I also found a couple official looking documents from 1942 saying something about the "Holy Land" and some sort of official raised seal. Still haven't figured out what they are.

A shame there aren't shots of NES and Genesis games. Good fun, thanks OP.

Yeah, when I first found it that was the first thing going through my mind was what kind of crazy ass video game ads would I find, but there was only the PC games. Aw well. ;)

[Optical]

Anyone else have any old ads with games in them?

[HumanSnatcher]

That was a fun read. Although the barcode reader was before vcr+ hit the market. I can't seem to find a damn thing about the history of VCR+. You'd think that it would be easy, but even wikipedia has just barebones information...

[evilmax17]

I love stuff like this.

Thanks OP!

[Spades22]

LOL 1000 bucks for a 40 MB computer...

[KingDox]

Yeah, I could swear we didn't have Best Buy in CA untill the mid 90's. Nice ad there OP.

[Blues]

Sorry, sorry, I know the joke's really old but I literally LOLed at the $599 Sony VCR.

[Import]

I didn't even know BB existed in 1989. We didn't get one here in NJ (At least as far as I can remember) until mid-late 90's.

[Demolition Man]

Edit: Nevermind.... my Opera ad filter somehow has mistaken stuff from Imageshack as ads.

[spmahn]

Odd. We had Best Buy come to our quaint little Ohio town in 1994.

Yeah, that was about as far as I believe they got. The first one in New York didn't open until I think late 1999, and they slowly expanded into New Jersey and Connecticut since. They didn't even have a store in Manhattan until 2002.

[yukine]

I was born in 1988...

I don't remember getting stereos that could play CDs until way later, we only had cassette tapes. :D

[HumanSnatcher]

BB here didn't open till about 97-98. I wonder if they had such shitty customer service then as they do now

[WhoKnowsWho]

I was only ten years old, I didn't even have my first computer yet.

[GuilewasNK]

http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/8026/sleavespock1copy4cn.jpg

[Kayden]

they had CDs in the eighties?

[GuilewasNK]

they had CDs in the eighties?

Yup.

The format started in the early 80's IIRC.

[Kayden]

Yup.

The format started in the early 80's IIRC.

That was a joke. =P

[RickHarrisMaine]

On the back page, check out the word processor that has the screen on it. I had that in college, and my god, what a piece of absolute shit that was! I wrote all my freshman papers on the thing though. By junior year, I couldn't even get the special sized disks for it anymore and I was pretty well screwed.

[Rihan]

On the back page, check out the word processor that has the screen on it. I had that in college, and my god, what a piece of absolute shit that was! I wrote all my freshman papers on the thing though. By junior year, I couldn't even get the special sized disks for it anymore and I was pretty well screwed.

And they wanted $700 for it :lol:

[highwaypatrolman]

i might have to swing by and get the $8.99 crock pot. thanks, op.

[mykevermin]

My grandpa used to have a huge wherehouse full of stuff he had gathered from his years and years of being a carpenter. We were cleaning it out over the summer and I found a cabinet with an old Fargo-Moorhead Forum newspaper and this was in it. I also found a couple official looking documents from 1942 saying something about the "Holy Land" and some sort of official raised seal. Still haven't figured out what they are.

I'd love to see those documents, if you could scan them.

My mom still has that RCA tv at her house, and I used to own the RCA VCR that was on the top of the page. Neat find!

[Rihan]

I'd love to see those documents, if you could scan them.

My mom still has that RCA tv at her house, and I used to own the RCA VCR that was on the top of the page. Neat find!

http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/5815/holylandcertificate5az.th.jpg (http://img182.imageshack.us/my.php?image=holylandcertificate5az.jpg)

2nd one is the same, just with a different name. I did some quick looking when I first found them and came up with nothing. With how good general condition for the age they are I wouldn't be surprised if they were some sort of mockup or something, but I guess if they were stashed away like the newspaper was its possible they are original.

The only thing I could come up with off the top of my head was maybe they are some sort of fancy baptismal certificate?

[Firwar]

lol where the heck did you find this thing?

[Rictor]

man how the hell did you get t his

My guess would be in an old newspaper? Head to your local library and you can probably read papers from the last 100 years or so, although the older ones are probably on microfilm. Unfortunately, they don't usally save the Sunday ads, but they do scan the ads that appear inside the paper next to the stories, and those are always entertaining.

[mykevermin]

http://www.myfranciscan.org/

It's probably just a souvenier from the Franciscan Monastery in DC.

[CocheseUGA]

Best Buy came to Atlanta in 93.

It's been downhill ever since.

[Rihan]

http://www.myfranciscan.org/

It's probably just a souvenier from the Franciscan Monastery in DC.

Heh, figures. Thanks for that, I would have never thought of anything along those lines.

[mer71]

Great post. Makes me think of the good ole days. LOL I feel so fucking old. Keep in my mind my first computer, if you want to call it that was a Timex Sinclair. By the way, we still don't have a BB where I live.

[Optical]

We got a Best Buy in Omaha, NE in 1992 or so.