1956 Blackstone Washing Machine

[Marky_Mark]

Listed for $100 in Prescott, AZ.

 

Seller says:  <span style="caret-color: #050505; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, '.SFNSText-Regular', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-weight: 400; white-space: pre-wrap;">Vintage 1956 - I do not know the working condition. This came with the house we purchased in the garage.</span>

 

 

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[repairguy]

It’s nice that folks are posting stuff like this for sale these days for those of us that might want to save it instead of loading it straight into a dumpster.

 

[blackstone]

Any estimate on shipping cost from AZ to Mass.?

 

[qsd-dan]

Any estimate on shipping cost from AZ to Mass.?

Same machine in your avatar?

 

[blackstone]

Yes, it is—Blackstone 250.

 

[maytag85]

How reliable are Blackstone washers from this era? Haven’t read too much about them in the archives but usually if they need something done, it’s quite simple though I can’t confirm since I’ve never owned, used, or seen one in person before.

 

[blackstone]

They are very reliable, if I must say so myself. I wouldn't say that repairs are simple, especially if you have to lift up the 70-lb. inner tub.

 

[combo52]

Blackstone model 250 automatic washer

This was Blackstone second major, automatic washer design.

The first automatic washer my younger brother Jeff found was a Blackstone to 50 must’ve been about 1962. We found it at a summer cleanup, trash, dump, it had a broken connecting rod in the transmission.

We found another 250. We tore them all apart, and we made one good one out of the one we found machine ran well

It was an impressively made machine from a mechanical standpoint. It had lots of weak spots, however, but it was a neat machine.

We finally put it in the classified ads to sell. It probably sold it for $30 all beautifully working, we advertise it as a black stone, auto washer and people would call up and ask if it had the nozzles with it, thinking it was to wash automobiles lol.

No automatic washer from the 50s was particularly reliable or very long lived, almost no 1959 or earlier automatic washers made it past 1970 and those that did had a lot of work done on them in most cases.

There were a lot of people that could repair washers in those days and labor was much cheaper, but even when all that was considered most people ditched the machines for newer, more reliable models pretty fast which was amazing considering people had paid nearly $300 for these machines just a few years earlier.

John.

 

[maytag85]

Since I frequent Arizona from time to time, I might consider on picking it up but will have to see. Going to thin out this summer and sell my Maytag A810 set that’s collecting dust in the shed since the A806 set is essentially a duplicate of that set and really don’t need 2 of everything. Plus I am going to try to start saving up for a 1966 Ford Galaxie 500 4 door hardtop I’ve been in search of for quite awhile now.

 

[blackstone]

Reliability

When one lives behind the store, and a Blackstone is used daily, repair work is not a concern. Need to replace a transmission? Just use one in sitting around in the store. Outer tub rusting through? Patch up a spare tub and replace. Bearing in the support disk noisy? Replace the disk with a rebuilt one, in which the metal was recently galvanized.

Our 350 lasted forever, and is probably still spinning, wherever it might be.

As for the 250 in Arizona, I messaged the realtor who is selling it, and the machine is spoken for. I told her that, whatever she does, do not junk the Blackstone. That would be a shame.

Realtor said that the house was owned by a Fred Myers, who died around 2000. Blackstone had been sitting in the garage until house was recently put on the market.