1976 Sears Fall & Winter scans

Automatic Washer - The world's coolest Washing Machines, Dryers and Dishwashers

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No worries guys. I love rifling through Sears catalogs when I was younger, thats what I used to as soon as a new one came, turn right to the appliance page!

I'll scan in an Eatons catalog next week.
 
SEARS CATALOG SCANS

Thanks for the memories, but looking at all the dishwashers and range products Sears sold back then you realize how much better things are today. There is not one range, wall oven or DW shown that I would have in my kitchen today all of the KM appliances in these catagories were average at best and usally pretty bad. The wall ovens and cooktops shown were all Roper products. 

 

I have a good customer that has that smooth-top drop-in range with hidden controls in near mint condition and is about to dump it if someone wants this beautiful but poorly built unreliable range.
 
Peteski...

Those slant-top free-standing and tri-level ranges like you see on Page 1147 were Roper...

They were still making that style in the Lafayette, Georgia plant, labeled "Kenmore" as well as "Roper", when I worked for them in the late '80's...

And even then, although Roper was the primary range supplier for Sears, there were still other manufacturers contributing to the Kenmore cooking line-up with select models...

 

George
 
I noticed several, but not all of the models could be had as Suds-Saver machines. If you ordered any model illustrated, but with the Suds-Saver, would it have had an extra switch on the control panel for Drain or Save Suds or was that switch only on the more expensive models? Our waterfall front Kenmore from 1952 had a suds-saver because when it was purchased the house had an electric water heater, but there was no switch for the suds valve. The wash water always drained out of the gray suds hose and the rinse water always drained out of the black hose. I do remember something in the owner's manual for our 58LK that showed an additional switch on the left side of the control panel for the Suds-Saver. What was weird about it was that the manual had the word "Suds" and then a blacked out space. Of course, I held it up to the light and made out the word "Miser" which was Whirlpool's term. I guess someone made a mistake. The picture of the control panel had the same blacked out area so I don't know what actually appeared on a control panel of the actual washer. The salesman we bought it from was named Ken Moore, too funny I know, and I remember he told my parents, who must have asked about a Suds-Saver, that they were not as popular in the South as in other parts of the country because of fewer basements in houses and hence a lack of set tubs. I don't know if that was before or after he showed them the reduced for clearance machine they bought.

When we moved to Georgia, the house we rented for a few months had a laundry room off the kitchen. The taps for the washing machine were on the risers of the water heater so there was no tub at all. My parents bought a portable tub from Sears that was galvanized on the inside and white on the outside. It had a shelf between the legs, a cover and casters for mobility. It had a screw-type valve for draining the thing and it had to be drained of the water that remained in the bottom after each suds return. Mom had to put the gray suds hose in the standpipe to drain the wash water after the last load. If she forgot to switch hoses before the rinse water drained, we were left with a tub of rinse water. Instead of sucking that up on suds return and then advancing the timer to the drain after the rinse, we just drained it into pails and carried it outside. In the house my parents built, the sewer line was too high for set tubs so we used the little metal tub until we got the 58. A few months before we got the 58, though, the suds valve started leaking. Rather than replace it since the tub bearings were getting noisy, they decided to just bypass it so everything drained out the black hose. Still intent on reusing the wash water, mom would put the drain hose in the little tub to save the wash water, but if she forgot to put the hose back in the standpipe, the rinse water drained into the tub also and we had to mop the basement floor. She bailed water back into the washer with a pail.
 
ceramic cooktop

I had no idea this existed in the 70s! At least in a Kenmore. I do remember the ranges in the 80s that had solid discs(ceramic?) in place of standard coils. Speaking of old Kenmore cooktops, does anyone have any pics to scan of the induction cooktop sears sold in the mid 80s.
 
THANKS for the scans!

These machines are all very fun to look at. My washer that I affectionately call the 'Green Beast' is in there as the middle machine in the standard capacity selection.

These catalogs are always fun to look at. I have collected most all the issues from 1970 to Fall 1986, and have been captivated by them for hours, but have to hide them when visitors and family come by. LOL! I think my favorite is the Spring/Summer 1980 catalog, mostly for its real pictures of the machines.

Others may be able to fill in some info on this, but I don't know for sure where Sears placed on the sales spectrum of kitchen appliances in those days. We surely know how John feels about the units they offered, and I know that I never saw many Kenmores in cooking or dishwashing. Most everything I saw as a kid was GE, but we lived near a lot of new construction, which always seemed to have all GE kitchens, so that may have a great deal to do with what I was exposed to.

Again, thanks for the scans!!

Gordon
 
Sears Kitchen Appliances

The only way you had Sears builtins was if you had Sears do the kitchen or if you just had a thing for Sears or only had credit at Sears. Neither the dishwashers nor the cooking appliances were really dependable and in many cases were poorly designed. As I have stated before, the husband of a family on my first paper route worked for Sears. They had Sears do a big remodel of their kitchen and little breezeway in 64 or 65. I was invited in to see the new kitchen. Sears installed a 30" hi-lo oven electric range made by Roper. Unlike GE, WH, Frigidaire or even Monarch (from a picture from an estate sale posted here), Roper combined a range with a lower oven with a pullout cooktop. The very nice lady saw my look when she pulled out the cooktop and it blocked addess to the lower oven and admitted it was a flaw. I couldn't help but wonder why they did not see that in the store. I wondered even more how Roper and Sears could allow such a disaster to be made and marketed. Think of holiday meals when you need the lower oven and the surface units. I know Hotpoint made a 30" oven to be used as a base for their 30" Hallmark range, but it was obviously an option, not an integral part of an appliance. In the 80s, friends put a Sears 30" gas range in their kitchen and in half a year, they had knobs breaking and the porcelain coating for the burner pans wearing away. The porcelain must have been applied in the same one-molecule-thickness that painters use in new apartments.

Every report I read about Sears dishwashers and the other brands from D&M stated that rust appeared in the sump during the testing. D&M must have collaborated with Roper on thin porcelain. At one point, the stainless steel for the wash arm declined in quality to the point that the crimp holding together the upper and lower parts of the bottom wash arm would open up at the end under normal use and begin spraying water out into the kitchen through the gap between the door and the lower panel.

The bad thing about their ceramic top ranges was that they could not sell the Corning Cookmates with them, like Corning dealers could. The Cookmates made the smooth top usable.
 
Now that was a book.

As usual  a big thank you to everyone who scanned and posted.

 

Looking at this catalog is real nostalgia; almost makes me whimper to think about the time when American companies, like Sears, offered their customers real value. Maybe some of these products weren't the best, but I don't believe their intention back then was to sell in bad faith or to gouge anybody. Pity.

 

I wish I had kept a Sears catalog from 1969; I loved the Lady Kenmores from that year.
 
yep my LK portables are similar to the portables on page number 1164

I wonder why they changed from a plastic lid and the short cycle that is on mine to the prewash and the metal lid on that 76 model

Oh the picture here I am not sure if this is #1 or #2

bpetersxx++7-20-2011-22-03-25.jpg
 
Short cycle vs. Pre-Wash

Is your machine a single-speed washer?

From everything I've seen as it relates to full-size Kenmores, Short wash was included only on washers with single speed motors as a replacement for Delicate. In at least one model's case, the short wash ran in the same cam location on the timer as Delicate, using a timer usually used on 2-speed machines.

I can't recall a single two-speed full-size Kenmore that had a separate Short wash cycle, and I'm making the presumption that the convention in the full-size machines applied reasonably consistently with the compacts as well. Therefore, I'm thinking that these compact Kenmores were developed at the time when Pre-Soak and Pre-wash cycles were becoming more and more common, so when the fanciest compact was designed, it was made to include Pre-wash.

What I remember of the compacts/portables from 1974 forward, it seems that the Lady K was usually a 2-speed machine, and the rest were single speed, and in a few cases the BOLs were not even fully automatic.

Gordon
 
COMPACT WASHER MOTOR SPEEDS ETC.

Yes Gordon the term short cycle was only used on one speed machines. Once WP switched to the DD compact washers they all had 2 speed motors and they used the lower motor speed for 75% of the agitation time even on the normal cycle.
 
Oh my! OH MY'!!! I remember some of these! We had the $214 dollar one in reply three. Gosh I remember it now. Long time ago. In the basement of our old old house. It was a mixed set and we got a different new set shortly after moving in because I think it broke or something. I remember them moving it out and putting it on the curb.

Also our kitchen had one of those over under units in brown!!!!! The $599 one in reply 18. It was replaced with our current white hot points.

This is so cool to see!
 
74 lk

sorry i got busy and did not get back to this in a timely matter

I'll have to test it out with cycles but it is a 2 speed machine

The short cycle seems to be a very short Normal cycle

PP is normal wash slow spin and slow agitation in the cooldown part of the cycle

Delicate is slow speed in wash and spin

I went down and looked again and the panel says Sears Lady Kenmore so maybe since it says Lady on the panel it may be that sears made this a 2 speed machine

Boy if I have a rare machine it would be great as i found these on my appliance search up at my favorite appliance store

A diamond in the rough as they say
 
Thank you thank thank you! :)

I've been looking for this catalog, or at least one like it. What Id give to be able to walk into a Sears store and find quality and simplicity like this. While those D&M were awful in there day Id take one any day over the 4 hour misters being sold today. Id also pay triple for a single knob Kenmore Dryer. IMO those center dials were the height of white goods. I wish they would bring back this style today.
 

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