Columbia House, the '12 CDs for a penny' club, is finally closing for good

The company, which peaked at $1.4 billion in annual revenue in 1996, will stop accepting orders on Sept. 15

For a generation, the company's 12-albums-for-a-cent offers were a rite of passage and a crash course in grown-up capitalism

Columbia House, the company that lured millions of customers into mail-order memberships with the promise of 12 CDs for a penny, said it was shutting down after 71 years. CBC News has contacted the company after the notice was removed from its website.