1958 SEARS COLDSPOT REFRIGERATOR - SAN DIEGO

[danemodsandy]

John (combo52):

"WP brought America and the rest of the world into the world of Automatic Ice-Makers that actually worked and by the late 60s WP was building IMs for 9 out of 12 brands of Frost-Free refrigerators."

Yeah, but wasn't that the Servel ice-maker, which was so good that Whirly bought Servel to get the patents?

Also, this Coldspot is certainly an interesting and feature-laden refrigerator, but contrast it with a '58 GE or Frigidaire. Those two brands are much more contemporary-looking to our eyes today, whereas this Coldspot is clearly late-1950s. Being "in the moment" is all very well - until the moment passes.

P.S.: It looks to me like that green paint job could be factory - one of the "lost colors" of the late '50s, like Cadet Blue or Woodtone Brown. Frigidaire had Sherwood Green up until '56, after all. PaintRef.com has a green cataloged for Kenmore in '58:

http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/colorcodedisplay.cgi?manuf=Appliance&model=Coldspot Kenmore&rows=50

If that's a repaint, someone was very meticulous with keeping paint off those door badges!

 

[combo52]

1958 Coldspot Refrigerator

Hi Sandy, yes Servel did invent the IM and were first to bring it to market and it is said that WP bought Servel largely to get the patents for this great idea, but it was truly WP and Sears that really were able to get it into millions of homes.

 

I to believe that the color of this ref could be original and yes this is not as great a ref as Frigidaire, GE and some others in 1958 which is why I said that WP really did not have great refs till the 1960s and by the 1970s-today WP built refs are still the BEST overall.

 

[danemodsandy]

John (combo52):

"Servel did invent the IM and were first to bring it to market and it is said that WP bought Servel largely to get the patents for this great idea, but it was truly WP and Sears that really were able to get it into millions of homes."

Yeah, I can see how that happened. As great as Servels could be, they were gas fridges, which were not a sales leader - electric fridges were just much easier to deal with, with no installation requirements except plugging in and setting the cold control.

If Servel had ever branched out into electric fridges in a big way, the "killer app" represented by the ice-maker might have changed the course of appliance manufacturing history. As you point out, a reliable ice-maker was not something you could get from just any manufacturer at the time. With an electric fridge lineup, Servel would have been sittin' pretty.

 

[combo52]

Servel

Also did sell electric refrigerators and they had IMs in both designs, even Servel saw the difficulty of selling gas refrigerators.

 

Gas refs were not powerful enough in warm climates and they always had a difficult time maintaining 0 degree freezer temperatures,

ever hear of a gas food freezer, LOL.

 

[danemodsandy]

John (combo52):

I said "in a big way." It would have taken a big, expensive marketing push, because Servel stood for "gas refrigerator" in the minds of the public. Breaking that mind-set with consumers would have taken some real money. What Servel seems to have done is to offer electrics with no particular "push" - sort of an "us too" strategy, which is to say no strategy at all. Had they really hammered consumers with electrics equipped with "The Ice Maker No One Else Has!" things might - might - have gone very differently for them.

We had a Servel in the last apartment we occupied for a couple of years before Mom and Dad bought their first house. I was little bitty then (four and five), but I remember that Mom would get irritated with it sometimes over temperature issues. I also remember her being very happy in the new house that we had an electric fridge.

I can tell you a tidbit I gleaned from a high-end residential architect who was active in the '40s and '50s: Gas Servels were popular at the luxury end of the market. The reason? That golden silence. Rich peoples' nerves fray easily, it seems.

 

[rp2813]

Original Paint

After taking another look at the close-up shots, I agree that the paint is probably original.  The lighting in the full view photo makes it appear to have a metallic finish.

 

I agree with the observation that the GE's and Frigidaires from 1958 do not look 55 years old today.  Most people don't realize my '57 Combo is so old, even with its pink interior, because its exterior lines are so clean.

 

Clearly though, if you're looking to make a statement in your retro modern kitchen, this Coldspot's design is the best one for the job compared to its GE and Frigidaire contemporaries.

 

[coldspot66]

Except for the color, this bottom freezer refrig doesn't look much different than a GE bottom freezer from the 60's or a Frigidaire...and this is a '58. Whirlpool appliances were never as stylish as their sister Kenmore, but this model is an exception. and I agree with John Combo 52 that W/P came into their own in the 60's and after. We had a Coldspot french door bottom freezer with the spacemaster interior in 1966. I LOVED that refrigerator. Very stylish and trouble free. In the 33 years that it lasted, all I did was replace an evaporator fan motor and a cold control. The light bulbs in both sections were original and we NEVER had a problem with the icemaker. In 1988 I bought another W/P french door bottom frezzer; it is 24 years old and the only things I have replaced is a relay on the compressor and door gaskets on all 3 doors. I think it's going to outlast the 1966 Coldspot.

 

[danemodsandy]

John (Coldspot66):

"Except for the color, this bottom freezer refrig doesn't look much different than a GE bottom freezer from the 60's or a Frigidaire...and this is a '58."

Here's a direct side by side comparison of the '58 GE and the '58 Coldspot. Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder, but in my opinion, the GE is timelessly sleek. The Coldspot feels very late-'50s, with fussy "glamour" ornamentation and a rounded look that was already out of step with styling trends:

 

[rp2813]

Let's not forget the clunky exposed hinges on the Coldspot.  That means having to provide dead space on the right for the doors to open fully.  The shoulder hinge design on the GE allowed it to be built in without any gaps, and the forced draft condenser coil underneath provided a clean back for counter-depth installation. 

 

You can't find a refrigerator made today by any manufacturer that doesn't have shoulder hinges, and forced draft condensers are widely used on all models but those toward the BOL.

 

[coldspot66]

Your right...beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

 

[coldspot66]

Lets not forget, styling aside, mechanically you are comparing a FF refrig with a manual defrost one in this instance. Manual defrost usually have a static condenser, though I'm not sure about the Coldspot, it may have a forced air condenser.

 

[danemodsandy]

Ralph:

"the forced draft condenser coil underneath provided a clean back for counter-depth installation."

That feature came at a price, which we paid.

It was easy to ignore or forget the instruction manual's exhortation to vacuum underneath the unit, with the possible result that the unit would build up heat underneath and damage the refrigeration system.

Since Mom was not exactly a demon housekeeper, our '58 had to have a new compressor around 1964 - out of warranty, at our expense. After that, Mom was very conscientious about vacuuming underneath the unit -

She had me do it once a month, like clockwork.

 

[danemodsandy]

Coldspot 66:

GE later made the same basic design totally frost-free, but this '58 was self-defrost in the fridge compartment only. The freezer had to be manually defrosted - a job which fell to me for fifteen years.

 

[danemodsandy]

Sharper Look at the Coldspot Ad:

I've tweaked the perspective and focus, so hopefully this will be a good look at the ad:

 

[rp2813]

My '57 Combination has the forced draft condenser and a frost-ee freezer.  I defrost the freezer two or three times a year and it's a fairly quick and painless process since it has a drain that routes water down to the trough on the rear wall of the refrigerator section and from there into the pan at the bottom in front of the condenser fan.  All I have to do is wipe the freezer interior dry, which is a cinch on a top-freezer model.

 

I vacuum the condenser coils no more often than twice a year and even with my lousy housekeeping habits there's not a lot of dust accumulation on them.  I'd really like to find an original pair of knurled-head screws that secure the front grille.  Being able to remove those by hand would eliminate the need for a socket wrench.  Member "juice61" who joined this site and quickly disappeared after he found what he wanted had a problematic '57 he was going to junk.  I e-mailed him with an inquiry about those screws and he never responded.  :-(

 

[danemodsandy]

Bottom-Freezer Models:

Also had a drain in the freezer floor.

For some reason, the instruction manual advised pouring a bit of water onto the drain plug after defrosting and replacing the drain plug. The water froze in place, of course. Probably something to do with a maximal seal of the plug.

With the plug out, water drained into a pan underneath the unit.

BTW, the bottom grille on the bottom-mount model just snapped into place, like today's refrigerators' grilles do.

 

[ovrphil]

Interesting thread! I find it amazing that the paint is original.... because the interior color suggests a pink exterior. I like the GE styling for '57..agree with danemodsandy. Who was leading their design team(s) at the time, to have a design that wore well on the eyes, for another 20 years, easily.

That ad showing a sharper image of the coldspot - can't help think of Easter. It's really different, isn't it?

 

[washer111]

Self-Cleaning Condenser

Why has no-one come up with a timed brushing system that does this for you? Is it REALLY that hard to achieve? 

 

Whilst I personally prefer "out of sight, out of mind" condensers that live in the cabinet, my sneaking suspicion is that they impact the refrigerator's performance. Perhaps this is why our F&P Freezer (1999) takes FOREVER to cool off after defrost, but can keep things at a chilly -11ºF (-24ºC) when on the manufacturer's "recommended" setting (and Yes, I've turned it right back to keep around 0ºF/-18ºC). What I usually do, is advance past the defrost on it, so it defrosts only every 24 hours, since we don't really go in there all that often, its a big waste to defrost twice daily (and believe me, it doesn't suffer. I've been around 36hrs without D/F this past day). 

 

[rp2813]

Interior Liner Color

I don't think there were ever any color choices for interior liners.  You got what the manufacturer was doing that year.  In the case of my '57, the interior liners for that model year were pink regardless of the exterior color.  The color options for exteriors that year were Canary Yellow, Turquoise Green, Petal Pink, Woodtone Brown, or White.

 

I imagine it was a similar situation with Coldspots.

 

[combo52]

Late 50s Refs

Sandy your parents GE where the compressor died had very or nothing with the lack of condenser cleaning. When GE went to the scotch-yoke compressor design around 1955 they had SEVERE durability problems that GE did not correct till around 1963. Almost EVERY GE refrigerator from this time period that I have ever seen either has had a new compressor or needs a new compressor, LOL. It is one of the first things I check if I am looking at an old GE ref built in this time period for someone to use, this is also true of ALL the GE Wall Refrigerators, I have NEVER seen that has not already had a NEW compressor, usually long ago.

 

Refrigerators did go a little wild with colors in the late 50s, I believe that Ralph is correct in stating that manufactures never let you chose an interior color, they did sometimes change them from year to year however.

 

I remember one customer here in College Park Maryland that a late 50s GE ref in cadet blue with a pink interior and deep green plastic breaker strips around the liner, she commented that one would often loose ones appetite upon oping the door when looking for something to eat, LOL. Some of the possible color combinations were just not that great.