Reference Desk

Which Sears Wish Book is that? How to tell the three apart

Comparison of the Christmas Book, which is the same holiday catalogue as the Wish Book, against the Fall/Winter catalog. Holiday cover art: yes for the holiday book, no for Fall/Winter. Page count: a few hundred against over 1,000. To a collector: collectable against a fraction. A note says to ask for the page count, and that the year sits small near the spine edge. — The Christmas Book and the Wish Book are one holiday catalogue of a few hundred pages; a listing that says over 1,000 pages is the Fall/Winter general catalogue, worth a fraction of the holiday books.Illustration: LinkToLooks

The book people mean is almost always a Sears Christmas Book — the annual holiday catalogue Sears published separately from its general merchandise catalogue, and the one people mean when they say ‘Wish Book’. Sears used both names across the run, which is why listings are a mess.

Verified copies were on sale at $50 (eBay) and unpriced (Etsy) on 31 August 2026.

Three books, one nickname

The confusion is structural, not the sellers’ fault:

Christmas Book — the holiday catalogue, published in the autumn. Toys in the back, which is the half everyone remembers.
Wish Book — the same publication under the name Sears leaned on in later years, including the ‘Great American Wish Book’ branding around 1990–91.
Fall/Winter catalog — the general merchandise book. Far thicker, no holiday cover art, and worth a fraction of the holiday books. It gets listed as a Wish Book constantly.

A row of well-read hardback and paperback books standing upright on a shelf, seen from the page edges. — Photo: Unknown, CC0 1.0, via Rawpixel

Dating a copy from the cover alone

The masthead treatment changed most years; a torn-paper label over a photographic still life is the early-1990s look.
The year is usually printed small, near the spine edge rather than centred — sellers photographing at an angle cut it off, so ask.
Page count is the honest test. Holiday books run a few hundred pages; if the seller says ‘over 1,000’, you are being sold the general catalogue.

Where to buy one

Retailer	Listing	Asking
eBay	1990 Sears Christmas Catalog Great American Wish Book…	$50
Etsy	Vintage Sears 1990 Wishbook Catalog (V9709)	listed, price on request

Last verified 31 August 2026, against 2 sale listings; reference scans excluded. Prices move; read them as the market on that date, not a promise.

What we removed from this table. The same search returned an archive scan and two magazine articles about the Wish Book. They are worth reading and they are not for sale, so they do not belong in a where-to-buy table with a price beside them. We would rather run a three-row table that is true.

Buying advice from people who look at a lot of these: condition on a catalogue means the toy pages. They were cut up by children with scissors and a wish list. A book described as complete with an intact back half is worth double a merely clean one, and almost nobody prices it that way.

Questions

What is the difference between the Sears Wish Book and the Christmas Book?

They are the same annual holiday catalogue under two names Sears used across different years. Neither is the thick Fall/Winter general merchandise catalogue, which is a different and much less collectable book.

How much is a Sears Wish Book worth?

On 31 August 2026 the verified sale listing was $50 for a 1990 Christmas Book. Condition of the toy pages moves that number more than the year does.