Thread Number: 74252  /  Tag: Vintage Dishwashers
Tell me more about Magic Chef
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Post# 980337   1/29/2018 at 02:03 (2,251 days old) by chetlaham (United States)        

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Who or what owned Magic Chef? To whom did magic Chef market to? And what year did Magic chef go from D&M to GE in terms of Dishwashers?

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Post# 980346 , Reply# 1   1/29/2018 at 04:28 (2,250 days old) by askolover (South of Nash Vegas, TN)        
From Wikipedia...fact or fiction???

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Magic Chef, Inc. (formerly the American Stove Company) is an appliance brand currently owned by CNA International Inc.

 

St. Louis origins

In the 1850s John Ringen, a German immigrant to the United States, began a tinshop in the major river port city of St. Louis, Missouri. His business prospered and in 1870, he took in a partner, George August Kahle, who had immigrated to America in 1867. The business sold housewares, early washing machines, and cooking stoves they called "quick meals". In 1881, George Kahle persuaded his brothers-in-law, Charles and Louis Stockstrom to set up a shop to make stoves. These four principals then organized two corporations, the Ringen Stove Company and the Quick Meal Stove Company.

 

American Stove Company and the Magic Chef brand name

Quick Meal manufactured the stoves with Ringen Stove handling the entire output of Quick Meal's production. The phenomenal growth of these two companies during the 1880s and 1890s led to the merger of eight other stove companies in St. Louis, Chicago and Cleveland in 1901 to form the American Stove Company. American Stove introduced the first oven temperature control device in 1914, and in 1929 began using the brand name Magic Chef. The Magic Chef name was so successful as an oven and stove brand that American Stove Company changed its name to Magic Chef, Inc. in 1951. The company remained well known for its gas stoves, but attempts to spread the brand to other household appliances were unsuccessful.

 

Sales and spread

In 1957, it was merged with the Food Giant Markets of California. In 1958, it was sold to Dixie Products, a small stove company of Cleveland, Tennessee after selling off a few underperforming divisions of Magic Chef. By 1986, the company had become the 249th largest industrial company in the nation and it was sold to Maytag. Magic Chef also made home furnaces and air conditioners and that operation was sold to Lennox International in 1988.

 

Whirlpool Corporation acquired Maytag Corporation in 2006, however Magic Chef has been spun out to CNA International Inc./MC Appliance Corporation which imports and markets small appliances under several brand names.


Post# 980347 , Reply# 2   1/29/2018 at 05:24 (2,250 days old) by Launderess (Quiet Please, There“s a Lady on Stage)        
Well since you asked.....

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Post# 980363 , Reply# 3   1/29/2018 at 06:45 (2,250 days old) by joeypete (Concord, NH)        

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My grandmother had at least a couple different Magic Chef gas stoves. They were basic but seemed well built. Her's had a stainless steel top to it. It was very nice. I was little at the time but I remember seeing the little mouse they used as an emblem. She had a dishwasher too that might have been MC. It was stainless interior, which in the 80's wasn't too common.

Post# 980379 , Reply# 4   1/29/2018 at 08:37 (2,250 days old) by panthera (Rocky Mountains)        
Magic Chef

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today, is a bit like Kenmore of yesteryear - you can buy really good products labeled Magic Chef and absolutely awful products with the same brand name.

The one thing you can't do is get parts from the current company or literature or anything else useful for anything vintage.

We have a Coca-Cola red microwave from them, have had it for some time and a portable ice-cube maker. Both were unusual for their market in that their instruction manuals were excellent.


Post# 980381 , Reply# 5   1/29/2018 at 09:10 (2,250 days old) by lesto (Atlanta)        

I have a late 70's Norge washer with the Magic Chef name on it so I'm guessing Fedders owned them for a brief period.

Post# 980385 , Reply# 6   1/29/2018 at 09:26 (2,250 days old) by vacerator (Macomb, Michigan)        
In the laundry aspect yes.

Magic Chef washers were Norge, but ranges were their own, shared with Hardwick before Maytag bought them. Before Montgomery Ward went under, they sold Magic Chef built ranges branded Admiral.
It's been too long to try remembering all of the cross over marketing. I think even Tappan washers were Norge, and Gibson, even though WCI owned those brands.
A Norge washer has/had a very thick top, where as a Westinghouse washer had a thinner one, like was used on Frigidaire washers made by WCI.


Post# 980456 , Reply# 7   1/29/2018 at 17:16 (2,250 days old) by goatfarmer (South Bend, home of Champions)        

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Tappan washers, and Gibson washers were WCI, aka Westinghouse, Frigidaire, Kelvinator, some Wards, etc....


Post# 980496 , Reply# 8   1/29/2018 at 19:50 (2,250 days old) by appnut (TX)        

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The dishwasher that's the subject of this post looks like the Magoc Chef version of my Tappan in the new house I began building October 1984 and moved into February/March 1985.  It came with a Tappan SCing gas range; dishwasher; OTR microwave.  The dishwasher & microwave were clearly GE and that's one of the reasons why I liked the house.  It was 20X a better cleaner than the 1980 Kenmore I left behind. 



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