Older Tappan electric stove

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Is it my vision, or is that oven "chromed" like a Flair oven? They brown beautifully. alr2903
 
Tappan had a thing for chrome lined ovens in their high end models. Keeping them clean must have been a bear because the chrome scratches and scuffs so easily. This range with the shadow box control panel dates from around 1960. The 40" models with this styling really looked elegant.
 
Chrome Oven Liners:

You're right about the scratching factor, and it was worse when these ranges were new, because oven cleaner didn't come in sprays yet. You got a jar of goo that had a little brush attached to the jar lid, and you had paint the entire damn oven with that tee-ninesy half-inch brush. If the oven cleaner was applied too thinly in a given spot, it didn't work. The temptation to get out the Kurly Kate and scratch away was enormous.

The other tactic popular at the time (I was there, sad to say) was using a single-edge razor blade to scrape the burnt grease off the oven liner. That would scratch chrome too, though it worked perfectly on porcelain.

The only way anyone could have kept a chrome liner pristine was to clean it very frequently, before grease had a chance to bake on hard.

People today would be amazed at how rough some cleaning methods were back then. When I was a kid, nearly everyone I knew had a tub, sink and range-top that were roughened by Comet and the other cleansers of that era.

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P.S.:

That vintage ad I posted makes the jar of Easy-Off look enormous. If you'll look behind it, to the photo of the woman in front of her range, you'll see there's another jar of Easy-Off on the range top. As you can see, it was small, like a jam jar. The brush was unbelievably small. Using it to paint Easy-Off all over the inside of a 30-inch oven was a job that seemed as if it would go on until the end of time. The fumes were enough to give you mutation concerns then, when we thought we were supposed to shaddup and trust big corporations implicitly.
 
OH well - it has been sold. I should have called yesterday! It certainly isn't like I need another 30" range around here anyway.

I spied the gas version of this a few years ago behind Menards. They are pretty cool looking.

swestoyz++1-10-2010-15-48-8.jpg
 
Sorry...

...To hear that, because it seems likely to me that it was sold to someone who just wanted a range cheap. That means it might not be taken care of, which seems a shame with something so rare.

However, you do have a great '58 GE already, so you're set with something good.
 
Sorry you didn't get it Ben but I have a feeling if you really want another range that something maybe even better will turn up.
 
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