On Friday morning this past week someone sent me a message that a lady had bought this machine in Maryland and had it she posted on a Facebook Appliance forum.
Two friends here on AW had spotted this and sent her my phone number we were in touch with each other by early afternoon and she bought this machine for very little money at a storage auction sale and wasn't sure what she had bought. She just thought it looked really cool. She was hoping it was electric and that the little blue flame on the handle actually meant that it used water, but in fact, it's a gas model which she couldn't use anyway I made a deal with her to buy it from her.
I picked it up yesterday evening. It's in good restorable shape.
I've known of the existence of this machine for almost 30 years a guy I met back in the mid 70s that worked at a whirlpool distributor name. Paul Matisa had purchased this machine from somebody in California had it created and moved here and it sat in a storage unit ever since I always try to get him to show it to me and he always wanted to come down and see the museum, but he never even made it down to see us in 30 years even though we talked a couple of times a year.
I always tried to stay in touch with Paul by phone or text. I text message was not returned from earlier this year and then I tried again just a month ago and no response. I found out that he died October 12 and apparently his husband just let this whole storage unit go to storage auction.
Some young man bought the whole contents of the storage area for 50 bucks. There were a lot of cool vacuums that he's selling to someone else and he sold this machine to the lady. I got it from probably for about $50 if that sadly there was a 1958 RCA whirlpool microwave oven, one of only two known to exist and the young guy tried to move. It broke the handle and just took it to the dump rather than trying to sell it I told him it potentially was worth a couple thousand as was the combo, the other sad thing is the storage locker was filled with whirlpool memorabilia and stuff that Paul had saved. He was fascinated with anything that had the whirlpool name on it that all went to the landfill kind of sad, but I'm glad I at least rescued the combination washer dryer.
This is a good lesson everybody should try to make sure that their prize possessions have a home after we're gone from this earth. It's sad that Paul's husband thought so little of his life's work as to just let this go. He knew of me he could've easily contacted me or many other appliance people here. Oh well.
Two friends here on AW had spotted this and sent her my phone number we were in touch with each other by early afternoon and she bought this machine for very little money at a storage auction sale and wasn't sure what she had bought. She just thought it looked really cool. She was hoping it was electric and that the little blue flame on the handle actually meant that it used water, but in fact, it's a gas model which she couldn't use anyway I made a deal with her to buy it from her.
I picked it up yesterday evening. It's in good restorable shape.
I've known of the existence of this machine for almost 30 years a guy I met back in the mid 70s that worked at a whirlpool distributor name. Paul Matisa had purchased this machine from somebody in California had it created and moved here and it sat in a storage unit ever since I always try to get him to show it to me and he always wanted to come down and see the museum, but he never even made it down to see us in 30 years even though we talked a couple of times a year.
I always tried to stay in touch with Paul by phone or text. I text message was not returned from earlier this year and then I tried again just a month ago and no response. I found out that he died October 12 and apparently his husband just let this whole storage unit go to storage auction.
Some young man bought the whole contents of the storage area for 50 bucks. There were a lot of cool vacuums that he's selling to someone else and he sold this machine to the lady. I got it from probably for about $50 if that sadly there was a 1958 RCA whirlpool microwave oven, one of only two known to exist and the young guy tried to move. It broke the handle and just took it to the dump rather than trying to sell it I told him it potentially was worth a couple thousand as was the combo, the other sad thing is the storage locker was filled with whirlpool memorabilia and stuff that Paul had saved. He was fascinated with anything that had the whirlpool name on it that all went to the landfill kind of sad, but I'm glad I at least rescued the combination washer dryer.
This is a good lesson everybody should try to make sure that their prize possessions have a home after we're gone from this earth. It's sad that Paul's husband thought so little of his life's work as to just let this go. He knew of me he could've easily contacted me or many other appliance people here. Oh well.
