Sears Coldspot Refrigerator early 1930s

[arrondissement]

Found this in the way back of my great-aunt's garage. Looks like she was using it for storage.

The ad in the last picture is from 1933, which looks to be the same fridge or at least very, very close to my eye. "Operates at about half the cost of ice."

No idea what state it is in, will investigate further and advise.

 

[scoots]

Thanks for posting that. Comparative economics is always interesting... I'd like to know what the unstated conditions were about the economy claim versus ice.

 

[arbilab]

From the Stooges, a block of ice was a dime which would be $1.67 today. 

 

A chart shows 1930 electricity was $0.60/kWh in 1992 dollars which would be $1.12 today. 

 

The Coldspot probably wasn't all that efficient, but it also wasn't all that ambitious. 

For convenience, say it took one kWh per day, about as long as a block of ice lasted.

 

So if the Stooges were right and a block of ice lasted only a day, running a fridge was a spot cheaper than an icebox. 

Not by half though.  Whether it was cheaper enough to make the payments on the fridge, you tell me.

 

On second thought, 1 kWh/day is probably too conservative.  If it was only 200W and ran half the time,

that's 200W x 12hrs = 2.4kWh.  And if you had kids with the door open every 15min it would run more.

[this post was last edited: 2/27/2021-09:35]