November 1998, Cream of the Crop: Best of the Dead Milkmen on CD. It cost me $5.37 wow.
According to Amazon, it was a couple of the “Top Secret Recipes” books in December 1997. I would swear that I bought a CD for the girl I was dating at the time earlier than that though, even if the order history doesn’t show it.
December 27, 2007: Kansas City: Then & Now 2, a book of before and after images.
I can’t get into my account right now (haven’t bought in a while, don’t have my password memorized) but it was back in the 1990s, and when they were still mailing Christmas presents to their customers. I got one two years–one year a travel mug, one year a mouse pad. (Anyone else get those?)
February 2003
Bryan Garner, A Dictionary of Modern American Usage.
My amazon history only goes back to 2005 for some reason, but the first order it shows was for In the Realms of the Unreal: The Mystery of Henry Darger and Jandek On Corwood, both excellent movies that I’ve watched well over a dozen times.
Kinda curious that the history only goes back that far, tho; I know I was ordering from them in the late '90s.
In January of 2000 I bought a few classical music CDs for my stepmother.
April 26, 1997 3 books:
13th Juror, The Andromeda Strain and Kiss the Girls
I was also a customer in that era. I got two travel mugs two years in a row. I still have them.
Yep, I was early enough to get a travel mug as well. It’s still bouncing around in the camping box.
November 23, 1998.
My Mom’s birthday is December 5 and she is English. Bought for her as a gift. Back when I still thought of them as a “book store”.
June, 2007. I preordered the last Harry Potter book.
My first Amazon purchase was an import CD of Axe Victim by Be Bop Deluxe: 11/1/2001. Interesting to note that the price has gone up from $17 to $25.
I can’t seem to get back far enough, either. I’ve tried all the email address and Amazon accounts I ever remember using (at amazon.com, amazon.de, and amazon.co.uk), but I can’t find anything that predates 2005, when I apparently bought a book about Indium for my father (some mineral/alternative medicine nuttery.)
I know I’ve bought several items from Amazon between '99 and '03, as that was the best way for me to receive English language books while I was living in Hungary, but there is no evidence of my orders anywhere. My guess is that is was some sort of “book of card games” or “teach yourself bridge” book.
- A bunch of Beavis and Butthead VHS tapes. Seriously. Still have them, somewhere.
For some reason Amazon’s order history for me is only going back to 2014. According to that my first purchase was a DVD copy of Animal House on October 8.
However, I know I ordered stuff from them before then, although I was a very sporadic customer. I distinctly remember ordering my wife an anniversary present in summer 2009. Also, I returned to school in 2011 and bought textbooks from them on occasion. I don’t think I used a different email address of credit card before 2014 but none of that stuff is showing up, so… I dunno.
I suspect summer of 2009 (I bought my wive the DVD set of How Clean Is Your House for our anniversary [Please don’t judge]) was my first Amazon purchase.
However, I when I was in high school, which was this weird mix of homeschool and private tutoring, my tutor bought an anatomy textbook for one of bio studies we were doing. I remember her talking about how wonderful this new online bookstore was. This would’ve been early fall 1996. So that was the first thing I received from Amazon.
Nov. 24, 1997, two copies of Master and Margarita. Why two? Who was the other one for? The answers are lost to time.
I know I browsed Amazon for books prior to that, but that must be the first one I pulled the trigger on and purchased.
Looking at my amazon order history is like looking at little snippets of my life.
Kind of fun.
August 2003, 3 Johnny Cash CDs.
Amazon allows me to go back to only 2002, and the only order that year was (they say) a book by Gladys Taber. I’m supremely confident that I did NOT order that book or any others by that author, ever, and it’s not in my library now. Later records look more plausible.
However, I recall an order I placed from an Amazon promotion sometime in the 1990’s, for a 56K internal PC modem card, $45 (great price at the time). This is not shown in their records.