The Stainless Is Literally Coming Out of the Woodwork Lately

[rp2813]

This Westinghouse oven looks like new (at least on the outside).

 

If you're willing to pay, the seller is willing to ship.

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/app/3644757574.html

 

[rp2813]

And Then There's This:

Also kind of pricey, but in great shape.  You don't often find a KDS-18 in stainless.

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/app/3649396738.html

 

[rp2813]

Not Stainless, But Still Beautiful

A lovely GE Combination, just like the one in my uncle's 1962 all-GE kitchen.  Nice as it is, it's not priced to sell.

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/app/3647554199.html

 

[tomturbomatic]

The 30" wide WH ovens were great ovens, as were most WH ovens. This is more 50s than 60s. They are only off by 16 years on the KA. Probably youngsters.

 

[danemodsandy]

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.

 

[perc-o-prince]

....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

 

[danemodsandy]

Uh....

...."The color?"

Nope.

 

[pulltostart]

Left-handed door maybe?

 

lawrence

 

[alr2903]

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

 

[danemodsandy]

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.

 

[tomturbomatic]

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.

 

[combo52]

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.

 

[rp2813]

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.

 

[danemodsandy]

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.

 

[frontaloadotmy]

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!!!!

 

 

 

[rp2813]

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.

 

[danemodsandy]

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.

 

[rp2813]

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.

 

[philr]

When did GE introduce it's Frost Guard models? 3 out of the 4 fridges I use have left hinged doors, were they really that much less common?

 

[tomturbomatic]

I thought that the door/drawer in GE bottom freezers lifted out to facilitate defrosting. It is removable in the 18.8 spacemaker wiht Frost Guard from 1962 that we moved from my parents' house to mine sometime in the late 90s, I think. It, too looks kinda timeless.

 

[danemodsandy]

Tom:

Yeah, the drawer came out, but that little space for the ice cube trays required you to get on your knees and snake your arm in there.

Also, it wasn't necessarily so easy to get the drawer out - its roller and track system could become clogged with frost or even ice. Especially in an un-airconditioned house in ultra-humid Georgia in the '60s. Refrigerators frosted up fast in that time and place.

 

[danemodsandy]

This Should Explain:

Here's an enlargement of one of the CL photos.

If you'll look, you'll see I've pointed out the ice-cube-tray shelf. It's only 3 or 4 inches below the top of the freezer compartment, meaning the compartment for the trays is only 3 or 4 inches high.

There's a light fixture in the middle of the ice-cube-tray compartment; it looks like some sort of center divider in the picture. Two ice-cube-trays fit on either side of the light, for a total of four trays.

Now, imagine being on your knees, and having to work your arm into this small space, all the way back to the rear of the compartment.

Fun!

 

[rp2813]

That's about as good an argument for a Frost Guard BF model as one could ask for.

 

[tomturbomatic]

I am asking this out of ignorance so please don't take it the wrong way, but when we defrosted our old Frigidaire with a shelf for the ice trays which was surrounded by the evaporator, mom just put trays of hot water in to melt the ice, those being the days before blow dryers which we used to defrost the WH chest freezer in the 70s. Couldn't the GE have been defrosted in a similar fashion? Before we got air conditioning, the freezer would have to be defrosted twice during the summer. Getting a frost free fridge was a real priority for her, but as it worked out, we got the AC before the GE Frost Guard. It did cut down on the defrosting, but it was still a messy job.

 

[danemodsandy]

Tom:

The problem on the GE was that you needed to wipe that ice tray shelf dry before restarting the unit. If you did not, ice trays would freeze fast to it - remember, they were aluminum in those days, not plastic. And the shelf needed to be really dry - a lazy wipe wouldn't do the job.

Ask me how I know. ;-)

 

[tomturbomatic]

So you use a ruler or a yardstick with a towel wrapped around it to wipe the back corners.

 

[danemodsandy]

I Give Up.

Tom:

I bow to your superior intellect.

Sheesh.

 

[tomturbomatic]

It wasn't a contest or anything like that Sandy,

but maybe if someone with an old bottom freezer refrigerator finds this site and this thread, they will have an easier time defrosting because we both have shared our experiences. Sharing is what makes this site so great. I am glad that the only thing I have to defrost is one of my upright freezers and with my 1970s vintage blow dryer, it goes super fast.