50s WH appliance center

[tomturbomatic]

Sadly rendered useless by today's cords and plugs, BUT STILL VERY EXPENSIVE, probably considered a treasure by the seller. Notice the three sizes of female cord mounted plugs for coffee makers, electric skillets and the Roaster Oven. This virgin bud has become a dried arrangement by sitting for close to 60 years.

Pardon Our Interruption...

 

[whirlcool]

Pretty pricey, don't you think? I think about half the minimum bid would be about right.

 

[jerrod6]

Umm Huh?

I don't understand. What do you do with this?

 

[danemodsandy]

Jerrod:

It's an automatic control center for small appliances like coffeemakers and electric skillets.

What you did was to unreel the appropriate cord for your appliance, connect it, and then set the clock/timer for the time you wanted the appliance to come on. This was considered very luxurious and convenient in the '50s.

There were variations of these from several manufacturers. This one is slightly unusual in that it has cords built into it, on reels to keep them wound up and neat. Most "appliance centers" just gave you a number of outlets to plug things into, using the detachable cords provided with the appliances.

Appliance centers surface occasionally, but they are not very common. They were expensive, and many ranges of the era offered a timed "convenience outlet" on the backguard, which was sufficient for most peoples' needs, which usually consisted of starting the electric percolator in the morning.

 

[hydralique]

At the price, I would expect it to be personally autographed by Betty Furness!

 

[cadman]

Jerrod, the other big advantage to building in an appliance center was that a 220v line could be run to the unit to power all those power hungry appliances that would otherwise overload a single kitchen circuit that was typical of the era. You'll notice individual circuit breakers hidden behind that access door.

 

[norgeway]

The Idea was...

It was easier to run one 220 volt cable to one of these, than many separate 110 lines,plus you had all the conviences of the timers and clocks, not to mention that most of your cords reeled out of your way when not in use.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Yes to all of the above and when these were made, most houses still had fuse boxes, many with limited space. It took less space in the box to run one 100 amp line to this thing than to run individual circuits, plus there was less tear up installing this than installing five 20 amp circuits which were needed in older kitchens to accommodate the increasing number of countertop appliances coming on the market in the 50s. Unfortunately, three circuits are on the retractable cords. Some electric skillets used the middle type of cord & plug before the immersible models with detachable heat control came along in the late 50s/early 60s and many of today's coffeemakers have a builtin clock so the timer becomes less of an advantage. The largest plug was only seen on big things like the largest Sunbeam electric skillet and their larger 5 qt saucepan and the Roaster Oven so it is pretty much useless today also. So the parade passed by while this device sat on the shelf.

 

[fido]

As there is only one red pointer on the clock and one cooking time control there must only be one timed event possible, selected by the right hand switch. Apart from that it is just a rather basic consumer unit with no main isolating switch. Those trailing cables probably caused problems too, so overall it does not have a lot going for it! It must work like the time delay devices on washers and dryers that are in the normally on condition but can interrupt the power to a circuit when selected.

 

[norgeway]

Trailing Cables...

That is the great thing, the cables are on reels like vacuum cleaner cord reels, so they roll back up into the unit out of the way when not in use, as I use vintage small appliances exclusively,it would work great for me.

 

[perc-o-prince]

We built a little older version of one in when we redid the kitchen several years ago, and Rich uses it all the time for the coffee pot of the day, the egg cooker, etc. The wind-up reels are handy for that, but it's nice to have the outlets, like for the coffee grinder that doesn't move! I ran 110 to it because we don't run a lot on it, and we haven't tripped one of the little circuit breakers yet.

Chuck

p.s.- Yes, ours is missing part of the 'W' in Westinghouse.

 

 

[davey7]

Chuck - you have an exclusive Vestinghouse of course!