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That GE Combination:

Is pretty much the fridge we had when I was growing up, except for the color (ours was White), and one other feature you don't often see....

....Can anyone tell me what it was? And no, it wasn't the foot pedal.

Hint: You're looking straight at it.
 
....Can anyone tell me what it was?

The color?

I don't know but if it has a working defrost timer p/n WR9X164, I'd like to rip it out of there for our turquoise one!

Chuck
 
I always admired the Westinghouse wall oven, in the first post. I wonder if modern electronic controls would benefit from the design? alr
 
Lawrence:

DINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDING!

You got it - a left-hinged door was special order at the time, and pretty uncommon. Reversible doors were still years in the future.

Our Combination was the far more common right-hinged model.

One question for whoever might know - isn't '58 kind of early for Coppertone? Isn't Woodtone Brown the right brown color for the year? Or is that Woodtone Brown and the photo's making it look darker?

Wait - that was three questions. ;)
 
It is woodtone brown. I have the double wall ovens in that color. It is a beautiful color and reminds me of when my mother would sift confectioner's sugar with cocoa before creaming butter into it to make chocolate frosting.
 
Left Hand Door Refergerators

We find year after year that 1/2 of all refrigerators we sell need the doors hinges on the left side. Once kitchens started to be completely filled with cabinets and full counter tops it seems to be just as likely that a refrigerator will be positioned in a kitchen where it needs to have a left hand door.

 

I dough that this cool GE refrigerator would have been stocked at many dealers in wood-tone brown even in a RH door back around 1959 and I would also bet that the GE distributor in most areas would have it in stock in both L&R hinged doors at the same cost at that time. I do think you are correct Sandy that RH door refrigerators were more common in the 1950s but it certainly does not seem to be the case any longer.
 
It hadn't occurred to me, but the left hand pull does make that fridge a somewhat rare find.

 

I was wrong about it being exactly like the one in my uncle's kitchen, other than the color and configuration.  His 1962 model had a different type of handle on the refrigerator door from the full-length one on the fridge in the ad, and his was frost-free.  It's interesting that on the '58 models, the top-freezer models didn't get a full-length handle on the fresh food section (like the '57's did) but the bottom freezer models did.  An aesthetic decision, I suppose.
 
Aesthetics:

One of the things that was really great about our '58 Combination was that it did not become stylistically dated over the years - the styling was timeless. When my mother finally killed it in the '80s, it was still a good-looking appliance if you overlooked thirty years' worth of battle scars from Mom's benign neglect and hard use in a three-kid family.

If the CL fridge was white and closer to me, I would be interested. One of the earliest manifestations of my interest in vintage appliances I can remember was when I used to run across our Combination's owner's manual, and would take it out and sigh over the perfect, glossy fridge in the photos - I still remember that the photos of the defrosting process * featured the hands of a model wearing a perfect five-coat manicure. The manual's fridge was quite a contrast to what ours had become! I can remember wishing I had a way to make ours like new again.

* In '58, the refrigerator compartment was self-defrosting, but the freezer was not. Anyone doing a real-life defrosting would have ruined their manicure - defrosting the shelf where the ice cube trays lived was a particular knuckle-buster.
 
Ralph

If  it    " works great "  as a refrigerator , and somebody covets a vintage Woodtone Brown GE  combination as a "daily driver"

 

how could you possibly consider $250 as not priced to sell? It's not like they're asking for $850,  for cryin' out loud!!!!

 

 
 
You make a good point Darrel.  I've seen refrigerators that would be far less viable for a daily driver (as in 40's or 50's single-doors that lack a true zero degree freezer) at almost twice the price. 

 

I guess what I should have said is that $250 is more than I'd be willing to pay, but I'm sure the price is negotiable.

 

Maybe by using a heating device similar to my "Red-E-Defrost" the de-icing of the bottom freezer wouldn't be such a back-breaking job.  It makes short work of the top freezer on my '57 Combo.
 
Ralph:

The problem with the freezer on bottom-mount Combinations is that the ice trays rest on a shelf at the top of the compartment. The shelf is mounted - if memory serves - maybe four inches from the top of the compartment. And it goes all the way back to the rear of the freezer.

This means you have to snake your arm in there during defrosting, to wipe things down and perhaps clear some ice. Since you're already down on your knees, it gets real uncomfortable, real fast. Even when I was fourteen years old, it hoit - I shudder to think about its effect on my bones today.
 
Yeah, the defrosting job on a bottom freezer model has always seemed off-putting to me.

 

If I were interested in a vintage BF model, I'd go for one a little newer and entirely frost free.  GE and others were still producing them in appealing colors well into the 60's.
 

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