Estate sale find: 1977 GE Electric range in Avocado

[polkanut]

We had this same model GE range in our church kitchen for many years, and it gave great service during its lifetime.  It helped prepare many funeral luncheons, church suppers etc.  You'll be very satisfied with its performance.  It was replaced about 4-5 years ago after being deemed "unrepairable" by the church trustees.  Can't remember what replaced it though.

 

[combo52]

GE Self-Cleaning Ovens

Hi Sandy I did not suggest not getting the clock fixed as the new owner even said that it was very important to him to have everything working.  However there is probably little if any danger in leaving an electric SCO in the clean cycle for hours, all day, a full week or even a month. The oven only gets so hot and even the early GE SC ovens had a backup thermostat to the main one that regulates the clean temperature. And GE actually made a basic 30" electric range with a SCO that had NO clock or timer what so ever, it merely had the word Clean on the selector switch and thermostat and the instructions said to turn it on and turn it off several hours later. We also must have several hundred customers that have various brands of SCO ranges where the clocks have not worked in years and I have never heard of it causing a problem let alone a fire as they continue to use this feature. The way GE and most other companies designed the clock on SCOs you could easily set the clean cycle for 12 hours and I am again sure that some people probably at least did so by accident and again never heard of a problem. If all these broken clocks were posing a safety problem the Consumer Product Safety Commission would force GE and others to do a recall to fix.

 

Moparguy [ Jeff ] Your GE gas range does use the same type clock, your range was manufactured by Tappan, GE had Tappan build most all of their gas ranges in the later 1980s when they decided to get into the gas range business. By the early 1990s they started building their own gas ranges in Mexico where they still make their gas ranges today.

 

[danemodsandy]

John:

With all due respect to your knowledge, I merely said that having a clean cycle go on for longer than needed was something I was not personally comfortable with. I didn't say anything about how safe it was or wasn't in technical terms.

It may help othere' understanding when I say I've been through a house fire. If you've had that experience, you become very, very conservative in the use of anything that heats up.

 

[drh4683]

1964 colors

Combo,

You make a good point about going with a color scheme matching 1964 standards. But I will admit, I've always been a fan of Avocado though even though I know it did come out later as you mentioned. That being said, I'm willing to bend my rules of exactness for the time period a little bit. Its the fact that my kitchen saw some changes over the years gave me the flexability to consider going more late 60's-70's thus going with my favorite color of Avocado. In fact, the avocado thing has led me to ask a related question about the color, but I'll reserve for a new thread.

Since the idea of 1964 colors was brought up, I know coppertone was certainly out there. There was also that lighter more pinkish looking coppertone as well (not sure if thats still considered coppertone). I've seen canary yellow (which is also the color of the fixtures in one of original bathrooms). And there were light blues, but not sure if those are "1964" or not. What were the popular colors and their names in '64?

As for this particular range, I'm looking forward to tuning it up and putting it into service. Thanks for the comments!

 

[danemodsandy]

Doug:

In '64, the popular colors were:

- White
- Yellow
- Turquoise
- Coppertone

In addition, brushed chrome or stainless was available in some manufacturers' lines, for TOL appliances.

Of those colors, Coppertone was the newest and highest-fashion color, and it maintained popularity for another dozen or more years (Mary Tyler Moore's second, high-rise apartment on her TV show had a top-freezer Amana fridge in Coppertone, and that was 1975). Yellow and Turquoise were gone by '67, giving way to Avocado, which was joined by Harvest a year or two later.

 

[danemodsandy]

P.S.:

There were two major variations of Coppertone, neither of which lasted very long, and neither of which were produced by all manufacturers.

One was GE's Woodtone Brown, superseded by Coppertone when GE realized that Coppertone would be an industry-standard color.

The other was Doeskin, which was sort of a shaded Almond. I only ever recall it being available in Kenmore appliances, but perhaps others here know more.

Oh, and I forgot: Pink was still available in '64, though waning in popularity.

 

[circlew]

Edged Fawn was the name Whirlpool used for their version of Doeskin.

Around here at least, I'd say Turquoise was the most popular color (other than White) at that time, followed by Coppertone, and then Yellow. As Sandy said, Pink was still around but not selling too well.

 

[danemodsandy]

Pink....

....Was kind of a tough sell. There were many women who liked it, but there were many who didn't; a lot of women don't find extremely girly stuff all that attractive.

The major problem, I think, was husbands, who were the major breadwinners of the time, and who sometimes objected to shelling out such a lot of money for something so fashionably feminine. I know that to have been true for one of our neighbors when I was a kid.

 

[lordkenmore]

John/Combo52--

I'm guessing Sandy's comments about the clock being A Good Thing for the self cleaning cycle were commenting on a comment I made above, when I mentioned that I could live with a non-working clock, and that I could live with a clock that's only right twice a day...

 

[lordkenmore]

"It may help othere' understanding when I say I've been through a house fire. If you've had that experience, you become very, very conservative in the use of anything that heats up."

I think this is very understandable.

I have never been through a fire, but I am conservative and even neurotic. I think part of it was my mother's attitudes, particularly towards electricity. My grandmother was also quite safety conscious, putting it mildly. (During one visit, there was a news story on TV about, as I recall, Jeep rollover incidents. I had to promise on the spot that I'd never, ever own a Jeep.) Then there were those fire safety units in school that were more frightening and graphic than any adult horror movie, which didn't help. (Making matters worse, one of my classmates father worked for the fire department. His father was happy to come and give talks to my class, and he had plenty of exhibits to bring, like a Christmas tree top angel that had started a fire, and burned a house down.) After all this, it's not surprising I'm neurotic at times. Indeed, it's amazing I don't live in an all concrete, fireproof house with no wiring, and nothing inflammable about....

 

[appliguy]

My mom bought this same stove in 1979/80

in harvest wheat (as GE called that color) but ours was more deluxe in the fact that instead of having a roll over analog timer like the one on the stove in this post my moms had a glass touch control panel for the timer and the display was green LED lights like the Magic Chef Microwaves of the same era had. Also the knobs on the one my mom had were restyled from the design that is on this stove.......PAT COFFEY

 

[firedome]

Another thoughtful feature

on this GE, Frigidaire, and some others was the chrome (stainless?) edging along each side along the ridge where the porcelain tended to get easily chipped by errant pots and pans... these kind of details became victim to the usual cost-cutting by the beancounters not too long after.

 

[electronicontrl]

I've still been on the search for my all Avocado appliances. As common as this color is (or was) you'd think they would be quite plentiful still. I don't run into them much on Chicago craigslist when it comes to finding this color. Granted, they are all 30+ years old now and it's also been a long wait trying to find units that are reasonably clean and in good shape.

I picked up this November-1977 GE electric range at an estate sale this weekend (same house that the '71 Maytags came from, posted in the Imperial forum). This range here is pretty clean. It came with the manuals and the broiler pan which appears unused down in the drawer and a handful of service repair receipts from 1978. I don't think the oven part ever got used, the cook top shows some usage on the elements and a slight amount of oily haze on and behind the control glass. I didn't get a chance to test it, but I did hook up one of the legs to 120V to see if the clock and lights work. The clock seems to be toast unfortunately. I'm going to take it apart and see whats going on. I don't know if the motor burns out on these, or if they get seized due to dried out/tacky oil.
I'm not surprised though as these seem to be the weak point on all of these old ranges. I saw a website for generaltimerepairs.com out in Iowa, maybe you guys have dealt with them before. They seem like a good resource for the old mechanical timer/clocks should I need a replacement.

Otherwise, this range is perhaps a little newer than I initially wanted, but it's still a nice looking and clean piece that will go well in my mostly original 1964 kitchen. In a perfect world, I'd like the range and the oven to be of the same vintage, preferably from the same home so I can say they are "a matched set" so to speak. Unfortunately the Avocado fridge that was in the home with this range was long gone from what I was told. So I'm still on the hunt for the avocado fridge and also a built-in kitchenaid suburba in avocado as well.

View attachment 88446

Beautiful!

 

[phillymatt53]

Ahh... those "vintage days" gone by.... almost!
As much as the new generation has bought into the current hype of stainless steel, wireless digital appliances and their apps, it's comforting to know there's a bunch of nostalgia nuts besides me that remain steadfast in "the good old days".
When people criticize me that I'm "Living in the past", I calmly tell them "What's so wrong with the past?"
I rarely got a reply from that, shuts them right up!

Below, my "vintage" kitchen.
The 1985 GE fridge, on the right the 1992 Tappan "Series110" gas range, next to it the 1971 Hobart Kitchenaid KD19 dishwasher.
And all in top shape.

 

[agiflow]

I wish I could have taken my mid 80s Tappan Centennial 30" gas range with me when I moved. Beautiful chrome back guard with fluorescent light and analog dials. Much better than the whirlpool Amana I have now. Another stove was actually easier to keep looking clean also.

 

[qsd-dan]

next to it the 1971 Hobart Kitchenaid KD19 dishwasher.

The 19 series KA's ran from 10/1979 - 04/1981