The Bill Book And The 1959 Nimrod

Copyright 2012, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

Man's parent's bill book was the last of the cleaning and organizing and scanning of Man's mother's papers we brought here over 2 years ago.  It took a good hunk of an afternoon to absorb, read, chat about, sigh a few times, and read some more.  It listed loans they took out from 1948 until about 1963.  They purchased cars, a boat, storms and screens for the house, a new furnace, at least one clothes washer, cemetery lots, concrete for a drive way, and made payments on "revolving" charge accounts with stores such as Spiegels and of course there was Good Housekeeping, source of loans for many different items and causes.

One entry from that book certainly took my breath away, when in March of 1958 his parents took out a loan with a local bank for "glasses" in the amount of $163.44.  They paid $13.62 a month for 9  months and paid off the loan in November of 1958 with one final payment of $40.86.

Man's folks liked to camp and back in 1959 they purchased a Nimrod camping trailer, a little popup affair.  I found the bill of sale, the conditional sales contract in the bill book.  Of course there is a page recording the 8 monthly payments they made, plus the final pay off.  They borrowed $600.90.  The price of the camper was $520.00 and they purchased an ice chest for the sum of $17.88.  Taxes paid were $16.14 and the "time price differential" was $82.88.

And, here is the Nimrod, cute little thing, isn't it??  Yes, the trailer is cute too, and yes, that is Man standing there, all cute and cool like!

And, yes, I went snooping, err, researching the Nimrod.  I found a wonderful web site with oodles of photos, brochures, magazine articles and more.  I had a delightful hour or so looking around at Popup Camper History.   Do not miss this link/page, it leads to wonderful images!

Man remembers that there were 2 beds, one on each end and a narrow doorway.  Two years later his father purchased a boat and the Nimrod was sold. The boat became the "trailer" of sorts, they would toss all the camping gear, including a tent, into the boat and off they would go.

Man and I have been down memory lane for sure this week, lots of photos, documents, the bill book and the Nimrod.  And, the parlor in the house is finally clean too!  Yep, been a pretty good week.



* Time Price Differential, per the web site, Free Dictionary by Farlex:  "A method whereby a seller charges one amount for the immediate cash payment of merchandise and another amount for the same item or items when payment is rendered at a future date or in installments.

The immediate payment price is called the cash-price; the later price is known as the time-price or credit-price. The time-price differential is the difference between the two prices."

** The disclaimer:  Nimrod, Spiegels and Good Housekeeping names and products are protected by their own copyrights.  They have not asked me to review them, in fact, I am not sure some of them are still in business to do so.  I have no financial interest of any sort in them.  Please also see my page, Disclaim THAT! Beholden to - -

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