Sharper Image, whose catalog I once brought to my Dad when I was twelve or so and pointed to a suit of armor and told him it was $45 and he told me that was the cost for shipping and that the armor was $5,500 or something, is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy citing slow sales and litigation over its Ionic Breeze air purifiers.
The company tried to sue Consumer Reports for libel in 2003 over a story that claimed its purifiers did not, in fact, purify air and released unhealthy levels of ozone. The suit failed, leaving the company almost penniless.
The company has little cash in hand and is working on a $60 million loan to keep it afloat. Clearly crap that was a little too good for the SkyMall catalog wasn’t selling well.