Writing a book on early Kenwood appliances

[kenwoodenchef]

Hello everybody. Good morning or afternoon, wherever you are. I’m putting together a book on early Kenwood gear, and would like to appeal for photographs of some of the rarer models, if any of you have them.

I am particularly keen to have a photograph of the A470 Kenwood dishwasher that appeared for sale in Monmouth a few weeks ago (Gumtree pic below). Did anyone here purchase that? (Sadly can’t get the contact details of the seller). I’d also like a picture of the A1212 or A1414. Brochures may be useful if out of copyright. The higher quality the photos, the better.

Other things I’d like to have photos of: Kenwood Norge fridges or freezers c1960-63, Kenwood vacuums from the early 70s (has anyone found a Pile Rider?!), or anything else particularly rare from the 50s-70s… (I have images of all of the mixers now).

I don’t have much to offer in return as this will be a self-published book! I will of course credit any photos however you wish, and can provide a PDF of the pages on which your photo appears. I also have a repair manual for some models I can send copies of.

Thank you in advance, Diana

 

[keymatic]

Kenwood Appliances

Afternoon Diana,
Excellent to hear you are writting a book about Kenwood, always loved the good old Kewnood Chef and not so long ago picked up a new in the box A701 in blue from the early 60’s !!
Well back to Kenwood’s other not so well known appliances, i was doing some research last year on washers in general, and i knew they made a spin dryer but had never seen any pictures or literature on it, whilst flicking through the pages of the magazine Electrical, Radio & Trading which ran for about 70 years until its recent change to digital format, i found a reference to the machine - the K1 & K2 - dating from Dec 1957.
See the attachment for details, this i believe was the closest Kenwood got to laundry appliances. Good luck
Keith

 

[kenwoodenchef]

Brilliant! I did have an ad for the Sun-dry but it only has an image of the smaller machine. This is a great little snippet, and some valuable data there - thanks!

 

[vacbear58]

Diana

Sent you an email

Al

 

[sesteve]

Hi Diana

I have a Thorn brochure from 1974 the covers their brands of the day - Bendix, Kenwood, Moffat and Tricity. I’ve taken a few quick pics as it features the pile rider as well as other things such as dishwasher, mixers, toaster etc.
Is this useful?
Cheers
Steve

 

[beehiveboy]

Oh My!!!!! That brochure looks incredible!!!!!

 

[kenwoodenchef]

Ooooh, I'd quite like some scans of that brochure, if possible! Thanks, Steve. Great pictures of the Pile Rider! (what a name; jokes have been made...)

 

[foraloysius]

That Kenwood cleaner looks very much like an Excelsior 8100 series. Could be a relabelled one, the Excelsior vacuums were manufactured in the Netherlands. Here are some pictures of those Excelsiors.

 

[kenwoodenchef]

You're absolutely right, Foraloysius. They do look identical. Do you know the rough manufacture dates for your Excelsior models?

 

[foraloysius]

Those vacuums are from the late 60's and early 70's. Here's the Excelsior page of a Dutch collector.

https://www.stofzuigermuseum.nl/de-verzameling/excelsior

Excelsior were made in Dordrecht in the Netherlands. The factory is owned by Electrolux today, it's used for making parts these days.

There is no Wikipedia in English about it I think, this is the Dutch page:

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meterfabriek

Google Translate can help maybe, if not, just ask.

[this post was last edited: 8/11/2022-12:54]

 

[foraloysius]

More of these vacuums on Vacuumland, our sister site.

https://www.vacuumland.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?16664_37

https://www.vacuumland.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?11053

 

[vacbear58]

The Kenwood vacuum I have is similar to that shown in picture 1 in Louis's reply number 7, including the tools

 

[kenwoodenchef]

Thank you for all that information, both. It all fits perfectly with the dates I have for the Kenwood. And the Which? review confirms it was made in NL. Great detective work! Amazing that they were charging £35-39 for it, then discounting to £19 (when the Goblin was £15 at discount).