twintubdexter
Well-known member
<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">I'm sure everyone is tired of my stories of "Trade-In Fantasyland" but here's a brief one. Every time I see that Duomatic ad posted I'm reminded of one of the few appliances I can distinctly remember from 50+ years ago. Any laundry item that was Philco, Philco/Bendix as well as any combination was destined for the evil scrap guy, regardless of condition. My favorite part of working a non-school, full 8 hour day was hitting the "yard" to see what had come in from the previous day's deliveries. It was great fun for appliance-crazy me. One morning there it was, the same Duomatic from today's P.O.D. looking like it had just come out of the box. Anything that came with it was there, neatly kept in a plastic bag. Obviously it had received great care.</span>
<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">I thought what a shame. The scrap guy would take it, and because it was heavy, put it on the bottom row of his cattle truck along with gas ranges and the like, then with the help of his burly partner would virtually throw lighter weight stuff like Kenmores on top. You could hear the porcelain cracking and shattering all the way across the parking lot. I pointed this Duomatic out to one of the service guys who often talked about Bendix combinations and how good they were, much to the dismay of the other technicans, all primarily Frigidaire-trained guys. He decided to take the combination home, repair it and give it to his wife. Apparently she left her Duomatic back in Rhode Island when they moved to California. She couldn't have been happier if you had bought her a new Cadillac. I remember her saying the red white and blue lights on the console were "so patriotic". All these years later I think about that one machine out of thousands of really nice trade-ins I saw (I worked there from age 13 to 23) and how it was saved from the scrap heap.</span>
<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">I thought what a shame. The scrap guy would take it, and because it was heavy, put it on the bottom row of his cattle truck along with gas ranges and the like, then with the help of his burly partner would virtually throw lighter weight stuff like Kenmores on top. You could hear the porcelain cracking and shattering all the way across the parking lot. I pointed this Duomatic out to one of the service guys who often talked about Bendix combinations and how good they were, much to the dismay of the other technicans, all primarily Frigidaire-trained guys. He decided to take the combination home, repair it and give it to his wife. Apparently she left her Duomatic back in Rhode Island when they moved to California. She couldn't have been happier if you had bought her a new Cadillac. I remember her saying the red white and blue lights on the console were "so patriotic". All these years later I think about that one machine out of thousands of really nice trade-ins I saw (I worked there from age 13 to 23) and how it was saved from the scrap heap.</span>
