When I was last down in Boston in January and while kibbitzing with Jon, Eddie, Phil, Mike, and Paulo, we got to talking about the story behind Jon's nifty 1960 Speed Queens (aka 'Mothers Mink').   Jon thought it'd be fun to do a thread with the backstory of the machines in our collections, if we happen to know them, that is!

So, here goes!   The story behind my first vintage automatic washer and dryer set that I got back in fall of 2008, the 1966 Inglis Sterling set:

The washer and dryer were advertised for sale on the online classified ads site Kijiji.  I contacted the seller then convinced You-Know-Who to drive up to the town of Ste-Rose, on the north-western end of the Island of Laval.  The story behind the machines was that they were purchased new in 1966, when the former owners purchased their first house outside of St-Jerome.  At the time, the gentleman of the house was working at the Bell Helicopter plant as a machinist and his wife was expecting their first child, so they decided it would useful to have an automatic washer and dryer.  They stayed in that house until about 1977 (and had 3 more children - all boys) then built a new 'dream house' in Ste-Rose.  The former owner was the handy type and had done a few repairs to both machines over the years (his version of a tub snubber was a little rough...); he was proud of himself for having been able to disable the suds-saver valve because the machines were installed in the bathroom of the new house with no laundry tub for saved suds.  Well, the boys grew up and left home and in 2008, the washer started to leak hot water when the machine was not running.  The couple decided it was time to upgrade and their sons bought them a Samsung HE set for their 45th anniversary in June of 2008.   

I bought the machines, had them shipped down to Ogden and began using them until both the washer and dryer conked out on me in 2010.  BUT the machines were both revived (the washer was a long, arduous rebuild) and are still in use in the Ogden Laundry.

So, what's YOUR story???

PS - look at that - my 7500th thread!

I don't think I ever had such a detailed story about any of my machines! A few didn't have any story, others "were there when they bought the house" and I don't have a good memory to recall things people say to me when I'm purchasing something!  I'm sure you know more about those we picked together than I know about!

I can say that my 1965 Inglis set belonged to the grandmother (who had just died at 98 years or something like that), it was also in St-Jerome. That was the place where my great-grandparents on my mother's mother side lived, I still have a great aunt who lives in their former home and we sometimes have family meetings around St-Jerome.

The granddaughter who sold me the set and the Inglis top-loading dishwasher didn't know much about these but she told me her mother still used a 1972 Inglis set daily and she had been the laundry for her mother for many many years (so my machines had been unused for many years).  These are the pictures that were in the ad. 

To deviate just slightly from the Inglis theme. At about the same time I found the Inglis Citation dryer for James, I found another dryer in ad ad that grabbed my attention. The ad was placed by guys who recycle and resell stuff that people give them. I think this set came from an estate and the succession had called these guys to clean their house before they sold it. 

The 1st picture below is the reason why that dryer got my attention! While the washer wasn't advertised, the picture in the ad clearly showed a part the matching washer beside it. These machines were also made by Inglis in Canada but they were made for RCA Victor. So Inglis used some RCA Whirlpool parts so they would be branded as RCA. 

The washer had issues and they didn't put it for sale but I bought the pair and fixed the washer. I don't know much about this pair's history but I found a coupon behind the control panel (pics 3-4) which I assumed the first owner filled with the intention to mail it but never did. So that's all I know about the history of this set!

Enough with the Inglis already  lol :-)  Let's have a Frigidaire!

This washer showed up on Craigslist last summer, about 1 1/2 hours southwest of me.  I called the seller immediately and arranged to drive out to pick it up.  Knowing I was bringing it home "no matter what" I was interested to hear the back-story about the washer.  

The seller told me that it had belonged to his mother's sister who lived in Wyoming.  She bought the machine new and used it until 1969 when she passed it along to her sister (seller's mother) who put it in her garage/shed and let it sit until now.   I asked why his mother didn't use it and said they lived on a farm and at the time, didn't have the water system to handle and automatic washer.

The seller's mother and father had passed and they were cleaning out the farm buildings and found this washer.   It's a pretty rare model from 1949 that had a "new" Frigidaire spin-tub design that came right between the metal shaving-filled balance ring we're all familiar with and the white porcelain perforated liner in the machines before it.   This washer also still uses the Harmonizer balance system mounted to the bottom of the spin-tub.

I tested the machine and everything appeared to be functional aside from a loose pump impeller (scrape rattle & squeal) so I repaired that, changed the oil and motor capacitor and gave it a go.  All worked well and sounded good.  The timer wasn't advancing so I replaced the timer motor and added a relay to the motor circuit to keep the higher spin start-up amperage draw out of the timer.  A very cool looking timer, one of the oldest I've worked on.  I had a NIB replacement timer for this machine but decided to keep the original as it worked fine and only needed the motor.  

Although the machine works fine and is one of the smoothest spinning Frigidaire unimatics  I've ever seen, there is a slight bend at the very top of the pulsator shaft that makes the pulsator column just a little off and drives me nuts.  It doesn't seem to affect the function, but is really annoying to watch, especially in spin, so I'll take the mechanism out and replace the shaft this summer.  Somebody must have really put some muscle into removing the pulsator nut at one time to have bent the very top of that shaft.   Adds to the story and character 

Oh Greg, how lucky you are!

BTW, maybe, if you know about it, you could tell the story of my favorite machine, the '65 Frigidaire that I got from Ben that he got from you!

And from Canada again, no less!

From as far back as I can remember, I thought the Westinghouse slant-front Laundromat washers were THE coolest machine imaginable, vintage or not.  When I was 10, I remember volunteering to take care of the laundry during that troublesome time in August of 1973 when the family's GE V12 automatic was condemned and before we could take delivery of the Viking replacement. Why?  The dry cleaners and laundry at the ol' Pointe-Claire Shopping Centre had the bolt-down commercial Westinghouse washers.  I just loved looking at them.  I also recalling pitching a hissy at a Salvation Army store where I saw a Westinghouse slant-front washer and dryer set but my evil mother said 'NO'...

Fast forward to 2008.  I had been bitten by the Vintage Appliance Collector's Bug but good; to my credit I had already acquired the '59 GE Princess dishwasher, a '57 Mobile Maid, and the GE Combo along with the rest of the Wonder Kitchen.  I still checked on-line for vintage machine and darn near hit the floor when I saw an ad on the Toronto area craigslist for a Westinghouse washer and dryer set! 

I wasted no time and left messages for the seller expressing my interest.  It was in late September and I said I'd be able to arrange transport before the winter set in.  I had limited contact with the seller but I learned that the machines were not in Toronto... they were a couple of hours north of the Queen City in a place called Keswick (near Lake Simcoe).  We never hammered out a price but I said I would pay up to $400 for the set, even though the working condition was unknown.  Well, winter rolled in and although I left messages, I never heard back from the seller.  I gave up and, not ironically, I managed to find a 1950 Laundromat in Florida.  I bought that, had it shipped and got it into the newly-liberated basement in Ogden (it had been storing the Kitchen Centre).  Well, I started in on that restoration (blindly as usual) and was almost done by the end of summer, 2009.  Then one fine August morning, my cell phone went off showing a Toronto area code.  I was in the IT racket back then and I feared it was a customer, so I answered.  It wasn't.  It was someone I had left a message for about a year ago regarding a Westinghouse washer and dryer...  The person turned out to be the grandson of the original owner of the Westy pair.  He explained that his grandmother had passed away and the rest of the family tried to liquidate the estate in 2008 but there had been some dispute as to who exactly owned the house in Keswick... All had been resolved by 2009 and as a new co-owner of the house, the grandson was now in a position to begin the clearing out process.  He and his sister had taken note of my persistence (and probably found me on here on automaticwasher.org) and they wanted me to have the Westinghouse Laundromat and dryer!   Everyone in the Tomifobia Valley and even along both shores of Lake Mephremagog will no doubt recall the 'NOOOOOOO!' that Hubby screamed when I told him about this acquisition.  

But the story was really just beginning... I had a little matter of getting the machines.  I rented a truck and bound and gagged Hubby for the journey.  It was about an 8-hour drive from Ogden to Keswick; it turned out to be closer to 10 due to road work and an unfortunate incident in Bowmanville, Ontario where I lost my shorts...   Oh, and I also had to pick up a 1963 GE drop-door dishwasher that weekend.  Someone started his 'Damn these vintage machines' campaign about then, as I recall.

Well, I got the machines (added bonus - there came with some Canadian-model specific service literature).  I got them down to Ogden and I began the inspection process.  I was going to have a lot of work ahead of me.  I completed the 1950 Westinghouse so now I had a heck of a lot more knowledge of what to do and more importantly, what not to do!  Having the dryer to restore was an added challenge so I started on it almost right away.

And, as documented here, I had challenges...  The motors of both machines needed service, the washer timer wound up needing a complete rebuild, and my first fiddlings with the dryer resulted in a big blue flash.   However, with time and the advice and help from folks here on the board, I got the 1953 Canadian Westinghouse 'Twins' functional. 

They have now been in service faithfully since late 2011.  I have positioned them so that anyone who visits the Ogden Laundry will see them as they walk down the basement stairs.  

Since I was a little boy I've always had a fascination with washing machines, but don’t really know why.   Growing up, a pink (64?) Maytag A700 sat proudly in our kitchen handling the laundry for our family of 5 for probably 25 years (with 1 repair), however we never had a dryer.

I never imagined having a washing machine "collection"…. but in 2008, about a year after my ex became “my ex”, an opportunity presented itself and I said “why the hell not!”   

My car club had a drive tour event, which stopped for lunch at a house in Newport Beach a club member had recently purchased.    The house was empty and the plan was to demo existing house and build a 7000+ sq ft replacement.   While looking around the house I discovered a Kenmore badged – Westinghouse FL washer and Gibson dryer in the “in-laws apartment” over the garage.   Since the house was to be demo’d anyway, I asked if I could have this washer & dryer and he said “sure”!   This was the genesis for my collection.  

Within that first week, I also picked up a 24” 1984 KM (DD-spin drain) washer and a 1989 WP Imperial (DD-neutral drain) washer.   The following week a 1990 White-Westinghouse FL W&D came to my garage.  None of these, except the FL washers really “pushed my buttons”, but the best part is these were all free and fun to play with!    A Skinny-Mini also came to visit, but turned into “a permanent loan”.   I did the plumbing in my garage to hook them up and voilŕ my personal laundromat was born!  

4 years ago my friend David contacted me about the pink 1960 Maytag A142 / 641C pair for sale in Spokane, WA.  Seller said he’d been holding on to them for maybe 10 years and wanted to give them to his daughters.   The daughters however, wanted nothing to do with them, so he decided to sell them.   David said he and his wife were driving up to Spokane visit friends and if I bought the machines, he would bring them back for me.   Obviously I did and he did! While it's not the "exact" model I grew up with, it looks almost exactly the same, so close enough, AND I have a matching dryer too!

3.5 years ago I came across what may be considered the barn find of all barn finds, a 1953 Apex Wash-o-Matic.    The seller had purchased an old chicken ranch about 22 years before and this machine had been sitting in the barn for who knows how many years before that.   They decided to empty the barn out because it was collapsing.   But instead of throwing this machine in the scrap pile with everything else, they put it on Craigslist.   Again David to the rescue as be brought it to my attention.   So after driving 2 ˝ hours in heavy traffic in the rain, I bought it and brought it back home.

So now here we are 9 years later after saying “why the hell not!”.  My collection multiplied like a group of horny rabbits for a number of years, until I finally neutered it (LOL).   Machines came and went over the years and the collection eventually became a little more focused.   But it still takes up nearly 3 cars worth of space in a 6 car garage!