Western auto had card credit. Your name on a 3x5 index card with the amount you owed. Make a payment and they marked it on your card. When you payed it off, they gave you the card. Lol
JC Higgins made guns for sears and roebuck. Used to look through the wishbook catalog when we were kids. Pre internet!
Mossberg, Remington, Winchester, Stephens, Ithaca, Savage, Marlin, Iver Johnson, Harrington-Richardson, and many others made guns for the big retailers back in the day.
There were a few guns from Remington that were sold exclusively through retailers, like the .22 semiauto that was a cousin to the 66 that you could only get at Kmart, or the 66 "green" pattern stock that was only available through Monkey Wards.
They had lower price point guns that were made by a multitude of others as well. Everyone wanted to get that contract with Sears, Kmart, Montgomery Ward etc.
Not too hard to google the name brand and serial number.
Lots of good sites like this one that deal with "orphaned" or obscure firearms.
Kid has a Sears-branded 12 gauge pump that is at least an "exact" clone of a Mossberg that his grandfather left him.
He was pissed because he didnt get the .410 that my nephew got.
I told him that one was special in its own way, and he should hold on to it.