Yes, my mind likes to play tricks on me and make me think some of these companies are still around, if I just look for them hard enough. Here are more iconic companies that went down the drain:
Lionel Corporation
Please don’t tell my 4 year old that the Lionel Corporation bit the dust! Actually, the trains are still being made, just not by the original company. The famous train company was driven to bankruptcy in 1967 and by 1969, the entire company was sold to General Mills. Even General Mills couldn’t bring this puppy back to life, ceasing operations completely in 1993. However, Lionel, LLC, although there is no connection between them and the original Lionel Corporation, own the trademarks and most of the production right association with the original company, so Lionel trains are still available.
RCA
It seems like just yesterday I purchased an RCA television. Or, maybe it was 25 years ago. RCA was established in 1919 and for years sold radios, televisions, and VCRs. My father, an old radio buff, has many items that relate to RCA Victor and its famous mascot dog, Nipper. However, RCA seemed to start dying off when RCA leader (and founder of NBC) David Sarnoff retired in 1970. After that, the company went downhill, with GE eventually taking it over in 1986. Today, the original RCA name only lives on in licensing deals.
Pets.com
Ah, do you remember the Pets.com sock puppet? It turns out that the sock had a longer life expectancy than the company itself did. Pets.com, which sold pet food and supplies through the Internet, went public in February 2000 and as one of the original dotcom success stories, raising $82.5 million. Nevertheless, things went downhill rapidly after that. That November, the company filed for bankruptcy protection. CNET called it one of the greatest dotcom disasters in history.
E.F. Hutton
You probably know the famous line “When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen.” Well, apparently not as the stock market crash of 1987, bad press, and financial scandals helped kill this once powerful brokerage. The firm, which was founded in 1904, was eventually acquired by Shearson Lehman Brothers. Several mergers later, all that is left of E.F. Hutton can be found at Citigroup, Inc.
Stay tuned for my final installment of “Wait, Are You Sure that They Aren’t Still a Company?”