Mall Brands: Spencer's Gifts

By Mike Schuster Jun 19, 2009 8:20 am

Your one-stop shop for Phish posters and strawberry lube.

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At one point or another, just about everyone has faced this common dilemma: After being designated the organizer of a bachelorette party, you discover a close friend desperately needs help decorating their dorm with college-themed posters. That's when you find out a Grateful Dead tribute band is performing the next night and no one in your group owns a black light for the van. And, lo and behold, your father's about to turn 50, and you want to find that special gift that pokes fun at his advancing age.

It's a good thing there's Spencer's Gifts, which the wise consumer knows is the only game in town that can solve all these predicaments in one fell swoop.

Spencer's is the modern-day equivalent of the last page of a 1950s comic book. It covers the gamut of novelties, gag gifts, genitalia-shaped pasta, and obscene T-shirts that get kids suspended from 8th grade. Specializing in all things unnecessary, Spencer's is what Brookstone would be if it was run by a stoned 20-year-old.

The purveyor of shopping-mall novelties was founded in 1947 in -- where else -- Atlantic City. But it didn't start out selling velvet paintings of psychedelic mushrooms; it began as a mail order catalog carrying items such as hand-held sewing machines and personalized address stamps.

But not everything the early Spencer's sold was of the bland variety: A company ad in The Spokesman-Review from 1967 featured male girdles, a rudimentary phone tap, and a donkey figurine that poops cigarettes.

The Cherry Hill Mall in Cherry Hill, New Jersey holds the distinction of housing the very first Spencer's retail store. And since everyone has sought to own a whoopie cushion at some point in their life, the store remains there to this day.Twitter: @mcs212