Estate sale find: 1977 GE Electric range in Avocado

[drh4683]

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.

 

[drh4683]

Close up

 

[drh4683]

Inside the oven

 

[drh4683]

The console lit up

 

[danemodsandy]

Pease Keep Us Posted....

....On your experiences with the clock/timer.

I'm looking for a TOL GE 30" slide-in range with P*7 self-cleaning, and one of the things that keeps me away from units of this vintage - besides the Ye Olde Fayke Woode Graine - is the mechanical digital clock unit. My understanding is that it's more complex mechanically than earlier analog units, and less available new or rebuilt. The former analog unit was made for so long it's relatively easy to get rebuilt or to find NOS. So, I'll be very interested to hear if you have success getting this unit back to health.

P.S.: That oven is INCREDIBLE - like showroom new. Granny was not a baker, that's fer damn sure. Congrats.

 

[pulltostart]

What a BEAUTIFUL range!  Congratulations on a nice find.

 

lawrence

 

[lordkenmore]

Nice find. That clean oven is spectacular!

Good luck with the clock. That digital style is interesting, and it would be nice if it worked. But (speaking for myself, using my particular view and biases), I could live with a non-working clock. With this stove, I find that it's still an interesting touch, and it'll always be right twice a day! But then, I never use stove clocks, anyway.

 

[lordkenmore]

Ye Olde Fayke Woode Graine

is something that's puzzled me. Particularly when it was used on stoves, or other cooking gadgets. I guess my sense is that an inflammable material (real wood) is not something I'd happily associate with something that gets hot!

 

[frigilux]

Nice! Frankly, I wouldn't exchange a self-cleaning oven for a period-correct '64 model, but that's me. Congrats. Damn, man, that oven looks showroom-new.

 

[gansky1]

That is a very nice range - one of GE's finest. We dragged home a similar, a bit newer?, GE from the Habitat store over New Years and played with it for a while. As much as I like these ranges the harvest gold and lack of space mandated that it move on so I don't have it any more but would have had to been dragged away from this one too. Good find!

 

[chuffle]

Beautiful!!!

I have such a warm spot for kitchen appliances that are avocado...comes from being a kid when avocado (and brown and orange) was in style.

I drool when I look at that control panel! And - a real range light, something that looks so cool in the evening. I like to use my range's light as a night light during those long winter evenings, something that my parents always did with their old 1959 Norge.

Fantastic find!

Joe

 

[drh4683]

Thanks guys! Well, my kitchen being from 1964 has its drawbacks. Sadly none of the original appliances are still in and the countertops got changed out in 1990 with plain white laminate (boring!). Fortunately, the wood cabinets were left alone and I have the original light fixtures still. That being said, I at least don't have to ever feel guilty by playing switch-a-roo with appliances every now and then if I find something I like. If my kitchen were completely original, I wouldn't touch a thing as thats the kind of person I am (anything original must never be modified!). Thats the OCD in me.

For me, I have to get the clock going. Non working things bother me, even if its some feature I won't even use. Another OCD thing...
We had an old roper gas range that my parents bought new in 1988. I have fond memories of the clock buzzer as a kid as that range had the electro-mechanical clock. My mom used that timer for everything. I distinctively remember the mechanical sounds of the the leaf switches engaging to activate the buzzer about 5 seconds or so before it was set to go off. As soon as I'd hear that clicking noise and then the premature hum of the coil, I'd get up before it even sounded as I knew what was about to happen. Being the kid I was always ordered to go turn it off. GE made pretty much all of those timers, and this one has the same sound which is great! Its funny thing things we remember as kids...

 

[appnut]

Doug, I am pea green with envy.  GE Ranges are some of the best "modern" bakers. 

 

[combo52]

GE Range

This is a great range and it is not that difficult to get the clock repaired. Question,  if you are going for a 1964 kitchen, Avocado did not make its appearance till 1966 at the earliest. Why not do a 1964 color?.

 

[danemodsandy]

John:

The big deal with a range clock on this model is that the self-cleaning feature really kind of depends on it. While it is possible to run a cleaning cycle manually, having the clock set to turn off the cycle is a safety feature I personally would not want to do without. A self-cleaner gets up to 900 degrees F, and that kind of heat is something I wouldn't want to forget and leave on too long.

Ye Olde Fayke Woode Graine was just the fashion of the times; it was absolutely everywhere. In the early '70s, there were even toothbrushes with a little YOFWG inset in the handle!

No, it didn't make any sense, but then fashions seldom do when you look back on them in later years.

 

[moparguy]

My daily driver is a 1988 GE gas stove... I think made by Roper? It has the same clock and timer... and the same "warning" ticking sound just before the timer goes off! I also like the "night lights" of the panel light... just right when you are done cooking to be an inviting light showing off the beautiful oven control panel!

 

[lordkenmore]

I guess a clock does make real sense for self cleaning. That thought did not occur to me earlier--but then almost every stove I've ever used has NOT been self cleaning. My clock vision was limited to the thought of people using it to work the oven manually when they are out...something I'd never do. (I may be paranoid, but I don't like leaving cooking appliances alone while they work.)

 

[lordkenmore]

"No, it didn't make any sense, but then fashions seldom do when you look back on them in later years."

And sometimes they don't make sense when current!

My favorite comment about fashion was Oscar Wilde's. While not precisely about "sense," I think he had a good point: "Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months."

 

[danemodsandy]

John:

I've used the automatic oven feature on a few ranges, just for fun, without problems.

It can be a little challenging to come up with a menu that will cook properly when everything is baked for the same length of time, at the same temperature, but it's kind of nifty to come home and find - for instance - meatloaf, scalloped potatoes, green bean casserole and baked apples all ready!

If you REALLY want to get all Suzy Homemaker, bake everything in matching Corning Ware pieces, which can go right to the table (using those terrific Corning Ware buffet cradles, of course), in style.

Of course, every menu item tastes faintly of every other, but you can't have everything.

 

[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