Who else used to eagerly await the Miller’s catalog? I have saved this promo poster since the mid-1980s, although I wish now I had framed it earlier or at least kept the rolled document in a cardboard tube. But it doesn’t look too bad for being about 40 years old and having been through at least 5 moves.
Is that Sam Savitt artwork? I have a book “how to draw horses” or something like that. Could never do it though! Love the poster!
Maybe? I’m embarrassed to say I don’t know and I don’t see a signature on it. I remember buying two—one to pin on my wall and one to “keep for later.” I guess 40 years is later.
According to Google, yes, Sam Savitt did the artwork for the Miller’s Catalog posters!!
I absolutely adored his work as a child-- I read every horse book in our school and public libraries and his artwork was the best of the bunch.
I definitely love his artwork in books, along with CW Anderson’s. Vicki and the Black Horse comes to mind. Thanks for looking that up!
Definitely Sam Savitt. His artwork is wonderful and that’s such a cool poster!
I loved the old Millers catalogs. I used to read them cover to cover and circle all the stuff I was going to buy for my hypothetical horses.
Here’s a link to a cool article (with lots of illustrations) on Sam Savitt’s artwork:
That’s so neat that you kept it! I’m not familiar with Miller’s but I love Sam Savitt’s art. How many had this in their tack room boarding barn?
I bought my own print but it lives in the house to stay tidy.
I still have that one hanging on my wall. It’s been there for many, many, many, many, many, many, many years.
And a friend of mine used to have one hanging in his barn.
I still have a couple of old Miller’s catalogs, and a while ago I came across a few of the old trading cards they had with different jumper riders on them.
Yes it is. He did a lot of work for Millers catalogs back in the day
I had a horse map of the world, printed on cloth, in my bedroom. It showed where all the breeds came from. I studied that thing!
This is hanging in the bathroom at the barn where I ride
I still have a bunch of Miller’s catalogues residing in my basement dating from the early 1970’s until when they went out of business. (And I have many other equine catalogues as well - I used to work for a tack shop in a previous, long ago life.)
I LOVED poring through them - I guess I should dig them up and spend some time with them!
I remember the Savitt posters and I think I bought a couple for the Pony Club I helped with back in the 1980’s. They were excellent!
I actually worked at Miller’s for about two weeks during one of their last years in existence. They moved their headquarters to my tiny hometown and I got a customer service job with them, thinking it would be great. It wasn’t. Not their fault, I’m just not cut out for that job. I quit in the middle of the day, LOL. Became a high school English teacher within a year. Miller’s was gone not long after.
They were THE catalog back in the day. Dover was the other “nice” catalog. Stateline was a notch below and Chick’s was where my parents ordered all my stuff from when I started riding because it was affordable. Miller’s was reserved for Christmas presents. My teenage “Wish Book” LOL.
I had that one in my bedroom. My dad made a plywood back for it. This thread is total fun.
This is up at the barn I board at. I love it so much!
Who remembers Horse & Rider (I think), a western mag, used to have contests you could win a yearling. There was an entry form in the magazine, I remember some fine print about ‘no copies’ or some such? but you could enter as many times as you wanted. I took the whole thing literally, and I sat down and hand wrote every. single. word. about 20 times… got them all ready to mail, but didn’t have the stamps and had no way to get them. Sigh.
What would I have done with a yearling anyway?
IIRC, the 1950s Sears catalog had both a pony & a burro listed.
No matter how many times I left the catalog open to that page, my folks never took the hint.
Maybe living in the suburbs made my dream impractical, but Hope Lived
Spiegel’s and Montgomery Ward also sold ponies and other “pets”
Where I grew up in Oldham Co Kentucky a neighbor raised Shetlands for those catalog companies, at times they had well over three hundred head. That farm was passed on to his daughter who has her American Saddlebred stable there (has been there since the late 1960s)
So wait, it is your fault that Miller’s closed?
(kidding, clearly)