The dollar days of January

JERRY PERSON

Well folks, we reached the end of another year and are beginning a

new one, which I hope will be your best one ever.

When I was young growing up, the days after New Year’s were a time

for my mother to bring me along to shop for gifts during clearance

sales. For a kid, the five-cent and 10-cent stores were the best

places for a kid to spend his loose change on treasures at the

Cornet, F.W. Woolworth, S.H. Kress, W.T. Grants and J.J. Newberry.

The post-war years of the late 1940s and ‘50s were the best time

of my life, and others who lived through those years must surely have

some pleasant memories of that special time when a nickel could buy

so much.

As fellow classmate of mine and now president of the Auto

Appraisal Bureau, Jim Maxey, so aptly stated so many times, the ‘50s

were a magical time to grow up. Words just cannot express the wonder

and excitement of that time.

Looking back, it is amazing how much our dollar and even our

pennies could buy. This week, we are going to look back at some of

the bargains our downtown business community were offering us in the

month of January in 1951.

The holiday decorations were being removed from the show windows

and lovingly put away for another year. It was now time to bring out

the closeout and clearance bargains so they could make room for the

new merchandise coming in.

Our first stop is Nadine’s Woman’s Shop at 112 Main St., where the

ladies could buy a lovely dress for one dollar during her clearance

sale.

Across the street at 113 Main St., Eve Druxman’s ladies shop was

offering bedroom slippers or sport shoes for one dollar. For 98 cents

more, your wife could purchase a sheer nightgown to please her man,

and don’t forget to get your S&H; Green Stamps.

Over at Otto Culbertson Chevrolet at 302 Ocean Ave., service

manager Bob Woods was offering a hand and foot brake adjustment

special for only 75 cents. Roy Bryant Motors at 401 Main St. offered

to beautify your dirty car with a 15-minute car wash for $1.25, but

you had to fork over another 50 cents if you had whitewall tires.

Prices sure have gone up here in Huntington Beach since 1951, when

you could rent a partly furnished two-bedroom house at 105 11th St.

for $55 a month.

At the Alpha Beta Packing House Market, paying 75 cents for a

sirloin steak may have seemed expensive, but you could always buy a

pound of fresh ground beef for 49 cents.

At Bray’s Food Center at 218 Main St., a pound of MJB coffee was

only 75 cents and a dozen eggs were 49 cents. Walker’s Meat Market

inside Bray’s Market was offering a T-bone steak for your dinner

table at only 69 cents a pound.

Meanwhile, over at Jack Robertson’s men and boys shop at 115 Main

St., you could use your dollar to buy a men’s dress shirt, a sport

shirt or an all-wool gaucho sweater. For 29 cents more, Robertson was

offering a boys flannel shirt, or two for $2, during his clearance

sale. If you only needed a white shirt, Robertson had them for that

dollar of yours.

Les Cline’s men’s shop at 214 Main St. was giving away a lot of

merchandise in his price-slashing bonanza with bargains like an $18

sport coat priced at less than $7.

Rex Sundries at Fifth Street and Pacific Coast Highway, a woman

could purchase a fine bottle of Modart shampoo for her dollar or

splurge and get a Richard Hudnut home permanent wave kit for $2.75.

For a nice treat for the family’s dessert, you could try a pint of

peppermint stick ice cream from the Frosty Malt Shop at 106 Fifth St.

for only 30 cents.

Of course, everything was not cheap that year. Why, you would have

to spend 75 cents for a whole pound of butter at Bray’s Market.

For that reader in the family, Oscar Myhre Stationery at 116 Main

St. was selling children’s books, autobiographies of great men and

business books at less than 50 cents. Frank Tally, our feed store man

at 318 Main St. , had red caponette fryers on sale at 69 cents a

pound.

If you needed a complete motor overhaul to make that old clunker

purr again, then you could head over to Mandic Motors and have it

done for $70.

January saw the closing of William Bryant’s jewelry store at 303

Main. For his going out of business sale, everything was half price.

When you started tripping over your long hair, it was time for a

haircut at Bob’s Barber shop at 308 Walnut, where Bob Bryant would

trim your mane, and it would only set you back one whole dollar.

For a night at the movies, you could use half of that dollar to

get into the Surf Theatre at 121 Fifth St. to watch two full-length

features.

Now if you had lots of those dollars salted away, you could buy

your teenage son or daughter a nice, used 1940 Nash two-door sedan at

Don Grant Motors at 225 Fifth St. for only $285. I’ll bet Andy Arnold

would like to pay that for a car for his daughter Amy.

It’s hard to believe today, but there were chicken ranches here in

Huntington Beach. I mean the poultry variety, where you could get

fresh eggs and New York- dressed fryers at 50 cents. One of these

ranches was Carl Bielefeldt’s ranch at 18732 Florida and he would

even throw in a free bag of garden fertilizer.

I’m not going to tell you what you could buy a house for because

it would make you sick, but you could still buy vacant double lots in

the downtown for $250 each.

A cup of coffee would set you back a nickel, and so would a soda

pop.

It would be nice if we could roll back the clock and pick up some

of these after-holiday bargains from our town’s merchants, or maybe

just buy a piece of candy for a penny.

* JERRY PERSON is a local historian and longtime Huntington Beach

resident. If you have ideas for future columns, write him at P.O. Box

7182, Huntington Beach, CA 92615.