Here is a link to a brief history of J C Whitney

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JC_Whitney

To correct the folks in the prior replies, you never got
A catalog from J C Whitney.....you got a flood of catalogs.
If you bought something like $200 from them, you got catalogs
for several years.

On my first trip ever to Chicago, the main site to visit was
the J C Whitney location on Archer Ave....took up the entire
city block! Back then, I was not aware that it was in a two
gun neighborhood (two guns minimum to get in and out)

mike in tucson