Classic Hifi Care

Bill, you've guessed my soft spot - I love the colors of vintage appliances! The '72 KDC17 d/w is Coppertone and also have a set of panels for it in Harvest Gold. The 1957 40" GE Liberator is Canary Yellow (pale yellow). The 30" FD range is Harvest Gold. The '61 GE 30" is Poppy Red (!). Recently sold a '56 Hotpoint 40" range with rotisserie in Petal Pink! The cdolors are part of the fun, not to mention no computers, all electro-mechanical controls, better build quality, and many features no longer available. Pics are of 2 of the GEs.

more colors!

Nice Collection!

My grandma had a GE with the pushbuttton on the top like the one you posted in yellow. Hers was white. Nice collection!

That is a great collection Roger, where did you find them all? My folks had a Kitchen Aid dishwasher of the same style as the ones you have pictured. It was the Superba model, all push buttons, white, and I think they bought it around 1975. If I remember correctly, if you removed the white panels there were harvest gold and Avocado panels. I like the vintage kitchen done in turquoise. Is that yours? They just do not make stuff like this anymore. Everything you have is still repairable. Today, with it all having electronics, you just throw it away, and then spend a fortune buying a new one that is only good for about 7 years. Very sad what it has all come too. One more question, how come the range has one stainless panel?

Bill

Mostly craigslist and thru the vintage appliance website www.automaticwasher.org.
No the turquoise kitchen's not mine, a friend in Quebec has one including a wall fridge.

The '57 40" Liberator had the stainless panel on the L (smaller) oven only, the '58 didn't.
The yellow '58 has been our DD for years but is currently apart getting the cooktop re-porcelained.
Each of the "Piano Key" burner buttons has a different color bulb that lights up when the button is
pushed: blue - green - yellow - orange - red. Gotta love late '50s flash! The LF burner is called
Automatic Calrod as it's thermostatically controlled with a variable rotary dial and it has 4, 6 and 8"
coil size selection (the coil has 3 separate elements). The oven doors are chrome plated inside, and
there's both an unswitched 120ac outlet and also a timer controlled outlet on the panel. Full width
light under the top cowl and the "GE" symbol lights up red. An in-oven electric rotisserie and a cook-
top griddle that plugs into the timer controlled outlet are other features. They just don't do this kind
of stuff anymore!

They are all very repairable and parts generally available especially for GE, HP & Kenmore/Whirlpool.
I wouldn't buy any new appliance except a fridge, those have come a long way in elec consumtion, but
other appliances it doesn't make much difference. How much elec and h20 do you save with a new d/w
when they take 2 1/2 hrs to do a regular cycle when my KA 17 series (1974) will wash and dry them in
45 minutes and will take the chrome off a trailer hitch in the process... there's a reason they're often
called "a hurricane in a box"!

Washers, same thing, use little water but not enough to really clean stuff well and hot h20 is tepid at
best. My '75 Frigidaire 1-18 made by GM ('til '79 and does 1 to 18 lbs) is one of the best washers of all
time with it's up & down Jetcone agitator. (pic) The later WCI FDs slowly degenerated into crap, it's
now owned by Electrolux. The GE Filter FLow models and Kenpool/Whirlmore direct drive models are
excellent as well. New ones are LG and other swill.

Generally, Asian and Euro made models now, most especially front-loaders, are either complete shite
or repair intensive money pits (Bosch and other Euro) or both~. GE is now owned by the Chinese
Whirlpool and Speed Queen are about the only major US appliance makers now, SQ washers are true
commercial quality but fairly expensive. Our 2 WP fridges bought 12 and 7 years ago, both BOL top-
freezer models, have been excellent. I always strive to support the few US makers left alive. WP makes
Amana, Maytag, Hotpoint, Kit Aid and Jenn Aire as well.

My appliance guru for years has been a guy in the appliance sales/service business for 50 years, he also
wrote "The Time-Life Book of Appliance Repair" in the late '70s - highly recommended if you can find it!

I've seen the Auto Washer site, and it's cool looking at all the old machines. I find it so amazing that all this "old stuff" still works and can be repaired. Recently I replaced the dishwasher, and washer and dryer in the house. The house was built in 1998, and I'm the second owner. It had/has all the original appliances. The dishwasher was a Kitchen Aid, but, one of the new one half breed ones. It had all the original KA guts except the control center. That was all circuit boards. Guess what decide to fail one day, the electronics, and guess what else, the electronics were obsolete. I replaced it with a TOTL Maytag that I hope lasts a few years. The other thing that I replaced was the W&D. Those were replaced with Speed Queen. Their claim to fame even today is that they will last 25 plus years. I hope so! The remaining appliances in the house that are original are the Fridge, which is a Maytag Plus. The 30" electric range, which is a GE, and the above range Micro which is also a GE. I'm hoping they will last a few more years, especially since appliances are so hard to come by right now. When the time comes, they will be replaced with something made by Whirlpool.

Bill

In high school summer vacation, I worked in a hardware store that carried Speed Queen W&D's and on a few ocasions demonstrated them. I told the customer to bring a few items to wash, and I'd put it in and they would shop. when they returned, we'd pull them out and they always seemed to be impresed at the shirts and pants. the washer would turn them inside out. I'd tell 'em that clothes wern't truly clean unless they were inside out. They were a hard sell on concept, but not on results. They said they were good and they were good.

I donated my parents' first washer, a 1951 Frigidaire, to the Henry Ford Museum in the late '80s. I also gave them the original down-payment canceled check and a letter from the original salesman. Great machine, chugga-chugga as that agitator went up and down.

Now I'm headed for the family cottage with its ca. 1949 (?) Hotpoint push-button electric stove.

When I replaced my 1965 "Lady Kenmore" washer-dryer that I had used as a dryer only, it was hauled away by the local appliance dealer who collects and displays old appliances. I'm hoping he's got it stored and it shows up in his display window some day. Usually it's ranges in various color.

Chris Campbell

Rex, I guess we are brothers in the hardware business at the same time. I too, worked in hardware/appliance at the Gamble Store when I was a kid and loved every minute of that job. So many fond memories of the times that took place in, times I wish were still here.

Bill

The sad part about fondly remembering our first job is that we probably didn't appreciate it at the time like we should have.

Have to say I didn't and still don't look particularly fondly back at my first job at 17 delivering furniture in a new '66 Econoline van during the hot and humid summertime in Baltimore. It was expensive teak-wood Scan modern stuff and most of the buyers were in fancy high-rises downtown or out in the nicer suburbs. The other guy who did the driving was all of 20 and I was jealous of him as he had a brand new silver GTO and I didn't have a car until 3 yrs later, 2nd year of college, Dad's old '63 Ford wagon. No fond memories of that job as it was darn hard, sweaty work, even though I was fairly big even then (the fb and wrestling coaches at my HS kept trying to recruit me, however the only "sports" I liked participating in at the time were golf, girls, fishing and sailing, so I always said no!) and I was totally knackered by the end of each day. The only good thing besides the pay was that Art, the store's owner, lived across the street and I got to ride from the 'burbs down and back to their Fells Point location (right by the Inner Harbor) in his brand new '66 Sedan DeVille that floated like a cloud and had great a/c... I've loved big cushy American luxo-boats ever since!

I loved my first job. Pumping gas at the local Cities Service station. I knew everybody in town, what kind of car they drove, what they wanted when they came in. Doctor Moses would just abandon his '63 Electra 225 at the gas pumps. I would fill it with gas, check his notes to see if it was time for an oil change, etc. and then wash his car. Mrs. Roeschlein (pronounced RUSH LINE) had a '65 Plymouth with a six cylinder in it. A big Fury 1. The thing was slow as pond water. She always got ten gallons of regular, wanted everything checked and wanted me to tell her what service she needed. Mr. Faker had an old '47 Dodge he drove to work, then had a '51 DeSoto that was his "good" car, even though it was an antique itself. Kept that thing spit-shined, spotless at all times. He was particular about the whitewalls. They had to be 100%. That was good for a quarter tip. Harry Freeman would come in with his grain truck. It was a '61 White Super Mustang, a gas burner. I put $25 worth of gas in it one time. The gas pump would only go to $10 then you had to stop and start over. That was my biggest sale for quite a long time. We got to grease it and change the oil. And bust the tires to fix them. I was too young to do that, so Curly usually had to do that. Gas was 29.9 cents a gallon for regular, 32.9 cents a gallon for Ethyl. I had to know what cars burned what gas. Putting regular in a Buick or a Chrysler was a no-no. Old Runt Franklin had a '56 Ford pickup and he would come in two or three times on Saturday, particularly if it was raining for $1 worth of "raggler". A grease job was $1.50. Oil filters were $5 for most cars. Oil was between 39 cents a quart for Empire State reclaimed 30 weight that you put in junkers that used lots of oil, Quaker State was 59 cents a quart, Kendal was 59 cents and Cities Service branded oil was 59 cents. Batteries were about $25 for most cars. It cost $20 for a tune up unless it was a big V-8 with air conditioning. Plugs, points and condenser with a check-up. We had to vacuum out the floor boards of all the cars we did a lube job on unless it was raining or snowy and nasty. Ahhhhhh the good old days......

Anytime you can work on 'pre 70s cars is a good thing AFAIC. Luckily my boss/neighbor Art was a good guy, and the pay above average for then, not his fault furniture moving is hard work and Baltimore summers insufferably hot. I did get lots of strenuous exercise and built up my savings for college at least. And at the end of summer bought a Dual 1009 as a present to myself, still have it.

My first real job was summer employment. On the way to college after a vacation in my freshman year, I ran into a favorite high school teacher while waiting for my next plane at the old Willow Run Airport (think Hydramatic, or before that Henry Ford's B-24 Liberator Bomber plant: " With 3.5 million square feet of factory space, 650 B-24 Liberators rolled off the line every month by the end of 1944. Before the plant closed in 1945, Willow Run produced 8,685 B-24 bombers. " https://www.thehenryford.org/artifact/229817/).

We chatted and he asked if I wanted a summer job. He was coming back from Annapolis where he had checked out the Sailing School. They were going to pen a franchise in my home town. "deleted" yes.... I eventually became a sailing instructor but at all times over the next 4 summers also did dock maintenance, boat maintenance, pumped gas, cut grass, rented boats, and learned about life as an adult. I got fired once when I insulted (very loudly) an inept sailor who banged a boat into the dock. Fortunately the owner was on site at the time and agreed with my assessment, so the firing lasted all of 5 minutes (long enough for the klutz to leave the premises). Best part: we got to sail the rental boats after work. My brothers and buddies would arrive and we'd head out,sometimes with a bit of beer, and sail until after dark.

My old teacher was killed a few years later by a driver who fell asleep after a too-long shift at work. I never got to thank him for changing my life by making me into a sailor. Always say thank you when you think to do it, not when you work up the nerve to do it.

Chris Campbell
Still sailing