Only you folks could appreciate this...

[bajaespuma]

I found a vintage brochure of some GE dream machines from 1963 on ebay and it just arrived with some others that I'll share with you later. I am plotzing as I write this. MarkLightedControls, this is for you, thank you again...

 

[bajaespuma]

and then,

 

[bajaespuma]

Consumer's Returds kept harping on and on about the raised control panels and how morons could lose their clothes through the pedestals so GE, ever responsive to which way the wind was blowing, clearly couldn't decide whether up or down was the way to go. I guess this is why 1963 was the last year GE appliances had control panels raised on pedestals at all.

 

[bajaespuma]

and finally,

 

[vivalalavatrice]

I'm really speechless

GREAT!!!! Very cool! A very good brochure...
But wasn't the combo unit a undercounter model? Anyway the lid and the dispenser drawer seem the same...
GoodBYE
Diomede

 

[jasonl]

There were combos with a top control panel as well. Those combo's really made some splashy wash action.

 

[bajaespuma]

The combos were offered as undercounter(without backsplashes) and "free-standing" models as well. It's interesting, this is by all means, not a complete compendium of GE's 1963 models.

GE always seemed to produced "odd-ball" models throughout any given model year. I don't know if these were intended as builder's models or whether they just threw together units with spare parts. One of the reasons I'm so interested in this particular model year is that my maternal Grandmother had one of these grey-paneled 1963 units, but it never seems to show up in the brochures or catalogues. I believe that her's was the 1963 version of a WA-750X ( GE's popular MOL model). It sported the chrome/grey control panel like the 650, but had no pedestals like the 850's. I also noticed that another member, I think Tomturbomatic in Maryland, has an oddball model very similar to the 550 BOL depicted above, only it has two speeds. I have always wondered what model number that unit was.

 

[toggleswitch]

Cool. Thank you for posting.
Live and learn.
I dont receall ever seeing a horizontal handle on the GE dryers.

 

[fixerman]

I have the dryer shown in the first brochure. It's electric and for sale if anyone is interested.

 

[fixerman]

I have the dryer shown in the first brochure. It's electric and for sale if anyone is interested.

 

[appnut]

VERYN ICE!!! I can't wait for what else you have up your sleeve. GEs were so classy.

 

[veg-o-matic]

Man, I need one of those canopies in my laundry room!

veg

 

[swestoyz]

Veg - I agree, that is one HOT canopy!

Thanks for posting these super cool scans! GE's never get old....

Ben

 

[petek]

Forget the canopy, go for the frock and apron.

 

[peteski50]

GE

Thanks for posting the combos were nice except the spin was to slow.
Peter

 

[tomturbomatic]

Don't Plotz!

Oy Gottenu, such a mess as I have never in my life seen. One minute he's sitting there, the next it's kishkas on the ceiling, blut und dreck in everything. It's enough to make you plotz.

Ken, I will get you the number of my beautiful white on white control panel GE. The main reason that pedestals disappeared was that GE changed from vertically mounted control panels to the UGLY slanted control panels the next year. Some were ugly gray paint, some were a little better with mostly chrome faces surrounded by black. Our dryer was like that. Some nearer the top of the line had a light either at the base or at the top. The control panels of the TOL models were beautiful in their own way, but they were just not the same as the late 50s control panels.

 

[bajaespuma]

A Gesunt on you. Such a nice boy.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Ken, My wonderful GE is model WA 830X6 W(maybe?). Three water levels, 2 speeds, two wash temps. Everything you need in a shmart package. You want cold water, just set it to warm and turn off the hot faucet. She thanks you for remembering her.

 

[bajaespuma]

Such a nice boy.

I should do someting nice for you someday.

Here, so have a picture.

 

[tomturbomatic]

That is takeh some picture of our beautiful girl

although the super sharp focus causes her to look a bit harsh. While she does not need it you understand, she is very appreciative of softer lighting and a bissel softer focus. Do you see any difference, other than cosmetic, between the 750 and the 830? Maybe they are different years of the same model, but GE sort of stuck with the same numbers year after year.

This control panel went through all sorts of appearances. There were all chrome ones with red lettering in the middle.
There were chrome ones with a black background in the middle with chrome lettering and black keys and even ones with like a deep navy blue band in the middle with chrome letters. And there was one, I don't know if it was original, but the majority of the panel was black, with white letters in the middle band and chrome accents around the area of the keys. Then there are the ones that adopted the two tone with chrome above and gray or black below like are pictured above.

There were some drop in dryer models, too. Neighbors in our old neighborhood had a dryer with the control panel mounted like the washers mentioned above, but instead of keys, it had buttons for high, medium and low heat and start in a row to match the keys on the washer. It was timed dry only.

Thanks again for all of the GE information and pictures.

 

[Designgeek]

When I was a little kid we had one of those with the raised control panel, a few key-shaped pushbuttons on the left, the dial on the right with white lettering on a black background, the words V-12 in the middle, black agitator, and white plastic filter-flo thingie. That one I do remember; the ones we had later, I don't remember clearly. The reason this one stuck in my memory is because I recall being about 6 years old and trying to figure out the lettering on the dial, and thinking that the "12" setting was for 12 lbs, so the other markings were for various sizes of loads rather than for initial wash time.

As for people losing their clothes through the gap under the control panel: what really happened during the Consumer Reports tests was that a bunch of pesky squirrels kept sneaking in from outside, hiding behind the washer, and popping up behind the raised control panels to snarf a sock now and then to use for making their nests. Such crafty squirrels, only popping up to make their mischief when the CR testing guy turned his back for a moment!

 

[user 12105]

Funny how when CU stated in the early 90's that the GE design was dated...soon after GE redesigns their washers for the worse.

 

[spinout]

I noticed those comments in CU too....

However, I don't think GE was reacting to Consumers' Reports. I think the redesign was primarily intended to reduce [manufacturing] costs as was the trend. Claiming a new design was a secondary benefit, but the external resemblence to the DD WP/KM was probably no accident.

 

[cehalstead]

control panel

We had a BOL GE dryer in the mid 60's...high, low heat, air, and timer only...the control "panel" was mounted on the right side of the top. It was raised, and looked amazingly like a GE clock radio. Sure do wish I knew what year it was, and the orignal selling price. Mother bought it used to replace a dead '52 Filtrator...the GE needed to be vented, but not wanting to put a hole in the wall, it was left unvented for years...after all, the Filtrator didn't need venting, so what difference should it make? I just remember a very damp basement afterwards. So damp, we had to buy our first dehumidifier.

 

[bajaespuma]

I'm betting it was this one, a WA-450R, this one from 1958 but they may have kept making it into the early sixties. It hardly ever showed up on their brochures, probably because it was so BOL they just used it as a "builders' model" and you would see it in discount stores:

 

[frontaloadotmy]

The Dryer

I have a friend that is still using that model dryer, when I first saw it, I thought hmm, so GE made a control tower too!

 

[cehalstead]

control tower

That's the one.....for some reason, thought the controls were on the right, but after seeing the pic, remembered it exactly that way...don't know how old this one was when we bought it, so it may have been a '58.....THANKS!!!!!!

 

[bajaespuma]

cad alert!

and here's my obligatory rendering:

 

[thirtyater]

FixerMan, do you still have that dryer? If so E-mail me the deails.

Thanks

 

[tomturbomatic]

Ken, our neighbor had that dryer. Her GE washer had a full width white control panel with levers for hot or warm wash and Water Saver. The dial might have been sort of turquoise. Inside was GE's first design of the high speed dryer. The back of the drum was stationary and had a rectangular opening where the heat came in. The heating element was in a rectangular duct behind the drum. If you ran the dryer with the door open, there was no movement of air past the heater and a bright orange glow became visible in the opening in the back of the drum. There was a felt seal between the back of the drum and the drum itself and the drum ran on a bed of rollers underneath. I liked the timer knobs that year with the T shape and the chrome finish. While they might not have been the most ergonomically designed for comfort, you did not have to worry about wet fingers slipping off when you went to turn them like some of the smaller, more rounded chrome knobs they used later. The slightly more deluxe model of the dryer had a High/Low key next to the push to start.

There was an article about Gloria Swanson in Life, maybe, before she wrote her book on auto-lesbian relations titled Swanson on Swanson. (Not really.) Anyway, she became a strong advocate for health food and a vegetarian diet. There was a picture of her in her kitchen cutting up vegetables (hard to imagine a great star doing that) and visible in the photo is this washer, maybe with the Water Saver key. The picture might also be in the book; I will have to check. In the 60s, friends had a GE washer that was so BOL that it did not even have the Filter Flo feature. It was a perforated tub machine.


What a punim on that dryer(kvelling). It should be in pictures.

Nu, chachma, what was posting 134962 if it wasn't a picture with a little enhancement, just like big time? Such a talented one that mensch; helping everyone.

Thanks for the pictures.