1964 Sears Catalog (left) and the 1964 Gotham NFL G-890S in the flesh!

One of the things we love about Electric Football is finding new information about games from the past. A more accurate assessment would be confirmation of games from the past.

Throughout the long history of Electric Football games that weren’t necessarily “standard issue” appeared in many Christmas catalogs. And unless you got that specific game one Christmas, it was difficult to know whether the catalog games were actual Sears or Ward models…or  shall we say, just “enthusiastic” imaging from the retailer.

In other words, was it just a fancy looking prototype that didn’t actually exist?

Throughout the 1960’s Sears featured small Gotham Pressed Steel models with grandstands. This was not the way Gotham’s standard G-880 or G-890 games were outfitted in those days. If you found one on a store shelf it did not come with a grandstand.

In the Christmas catalogs of the early 1960’s small Gotham games had grandstands that were simply the end zone pieces of Gotham’s flagship NFL G-1500. But by the mid-1960’s the small games had special grandstands that were not just hand-me-downs from big brother.

1965 Gotham NFL G-890S in Full Color Electric Football

We featured the 1965-66 Sears NFL G-890S on page 22 of our Full Color Electric Football book, which has a unique crowd scene with dials for down and yardage (notice there is no scoreboard).  But the 1964 version is pictured in the Sears Christmas Book with a grandstand we’d never ever seen…until very recently.

1964 Sears-specific Gotham NFL G-890S

Game box with G-890S on the bottom corner

An inquiry came in through The Buzz web page for us to ID a game, and to our delight, it was in fact a 1964 Sears-exclusive G-890. The owner even had the box, which turned out to be the ultimate piece of ID info, as on the box. So all these years later we finally have confirmation that a mysto catalog games actually does exist. Never too old to learn!

Keep those questions coming!!