GE Dryer

[goatfarmer]

Anyone feel the need for this one? Just came in, unchecked. Pick it up in South Bend, Indiana, and it's yours!

kennyGF

 

[appnut]

Kenny, neighbors down the street haid that exact dryer. It was paired with a FF that had a turqoise dial and vertical toggleswitches.

 

[gyrafoam]

Kenny, I believe that is the match to Lawrence's (pulltostart) '61 GE Washer.
I'll give him a call and get his attention.

 

[pulltostart]

GE Mate

Nice dryer! Looks like the same console as my filter-flo, but can't tell if the console is elevated or not from this photo.... Here's mine, Kenny - is it a mate?

Lawrence

 

[goatfarmer]

No elevated console on mine. It sit's flush with the cabinet. A close "cousin".

kennyGF

 

[bajaespuma]

OK, NOW I'M MAD!!

Kenny,

Would you please be a pal and let us know what the model # on that @#@#!$#@ GE dryer is?? GE must have been slapping these things together on short order with spare parts because that is a DA 720V control panel(the dryer I grew up with from the GE pair that started this obsession) on a DA 620V cabinet!!! Lawrence is right, that console SHOULD BE ELEVATED ON PEDESTALS!! Also, ours didn't say "Clothes Conditioning Automatic Dryer".

The first GE's we ever owned (which, by the way, lasted until we sold the house 17 years later), a WA 750V and a DA 720V, both from 1961:

 

[bajaespuma]

I goofed

Forgive me, where I wrote V I meant W.

 

[bajaespuma]

I bet the model number ends up being something like DA 575W. Here's a brochure from that year:

View attachment 4-14-2007-20-08-46--bajaespuma.jpg

 

[goatfarmer]

I'll get the model # later today, it's on the other truck.

kennyGF

 

[goatfarmer]

Model # is........1DA723W5W. Does that make any sense?

kennyGF

 

[bajaespuma]

Model # is........1DA723W5W. Does that make any sense?

Thanks, Kenny, it makes some sense.

GE model numbers (for the consumer) followed this format: DA 723 W

Where:
D=Dryer
A=Automatic(presumably, both washers and dryers generally had the A designation until 1966 or 7 whenever GE intoduced its first gas dryer then the A would have been replaced by an E if the unit were electric or a G if it were gas)

723=Model ranking number(probably more complex than that, but I haven't deciphered it all yet. GE dryers from 1957 to 1966 generally followed the numbers from BOL to TOL: 420, 520, 620, 720, 820, 920, 1020/1220 )

W=1962

What I've been noticing since I've joined this club, is that GE produced many odd-ball models in any given year that look almost as if GE were throwing these models together as experiments or as simply a way to use up spare parts. This unit has the control panel of a DA 720W as I've said, but it's missing the pedestals. I would have expected the model # to be lower than 720 here, but maybe GE put it together as a response to Consumer Reports' criticism of GE's of that generation that the raised control panel allowed clothing to escape and fall down the back of the unit. I know that in the following year, 1963 both the 720 and the 820 models had no pedestals either. In 1964 GE did away with the pedestals on all of its appliances entirely. Yet again, CU kills off another cool retro feature of that generation. Here are the 820 and 920 from 1963:

 

[bajaespuma]

I guess one of the reasons I'm so obsessed with GE's and their model numbers is that my Grandmother owned a great oddball like your dryer and I still haven't found it in any catalogue for GE's. I'm guessing it was a 1963 WA-723X, but I never thought to look for/at the serial plate when I was younger. I wish I had asked her for the literature that came with the machine because she would have kept all of it.

 

[goatfarmer]

So this is a 1962 MOL, eh? Interesting. Not much for features, I was thinking more of a basic dryer.
Anyway,it's here if someone needs it.

kennyGF

 

[bajaespuma]

Hey Kenny,

Would you be willing to remove that control panel, disconnecting the wires from the motor, nichromes, themosensor, etc. and send it to me for a price? I'd really like to have that thing but I can't afford the shipping for the whole unit right now. And at least the works can be used again/later without killing the thing. Lemme know.

 

[tomturbomatic]

The GE washer with the lady and little girl standing beside it in their smart 60s colors was our model.

Does the dryer without the raised control panel have an automatic dry cycle and a Dewrinkle setting? I think it was only dryers with those two features that were called "Clothes Conditioning Dryer." Kenny's dryer without the pedestal control panel looks more like a long timed cycle and an air fluff cycle. Is that incorrect?

 

[goatfarmer]

I have someone interested in the whole thing. I'll let you know what happens.

kennyGF

 

[bajaespuma]

dryer without the pedestal control panel looks more like a l

I originally thought the same way you did. But that's what's weird about this and why I think GE was slapping these things together with spare parts at the end of the model year to make way for the new line. The timer on this dryer is EXACTLY like our DA 720W with the automatic cycle. Only differences are no pedestals here, and ours didn't have the words "clothes conditioning". Ours had an interior light. Does this one?

 

[sharples]

Mines identical to this

Model No. 616W1 W

 

[tomturbomatic]

616W1W

neighbors had a pair of these. The dryer was the first GE I ever saw with a medium heat button. Matching washer had 4 tab switches: speed, wash temp, rinse temp, water level. I liked these vertical control panels so much better than the slanted ones. In so many models they really looked cheap with all paint and no chrome.

 

[pulltostart]

Kenny,

If whoever is interested in the "whole thing" backs out, please let me know. It's not identical to mine, but is close enough to not let it be trashed.

Lawrence

 

[toggleswitch]

That has got to be immoral...........

~The dryer was the first GE I ever saw with a medium heat button.

Can't say about electrics, but on my new gas GE dryer the medium heat and the high heat are the same temperature!