An Old Cold Spot

My brother Mike emailed me this photo last night.  He said this was a goodbye salute that he snapped today in his garage where this old freezer has been chugging away since 1988.  That was the year our mama decided she was tired of bending over and digging through it.  Besides, she no longer needed the capacity and hadn't for several years.



Mike and my sister-in-law  spent the next 25 years "digging" through this old freezer.  My sis-in-law was very good at keeping it and the cupboards stocked.  The two of them kept promising each other that "It is going to die soon, so we will just keep it until that day."

Twenty-five years may seem like a very long life for a freezer.  It is MUCH older than that. Sears only sold Coldspot through 1976.  I thought that my parent's purchased this freezer in the sixties.  My brother said he put the serial number 'on-line' and it matched a 1953 manufacturing date.   Here is a close up of the make and model that Mike included in his email.  Just in case no one believes it is the same one.



The fact remains, give or take 10 years, that this old Coldspot was still doing its job.  Yes, the top was rusty and dented from having things stacked on it and dropped on it.  It has seen a lot of use.   (Note it was still balancing the cat litter in the photo.) But everything on the inside remained solid.

About a year ago WR and I retired an old Hotspot fridge that we kept in our garage.  We think it was a model from the forties as it had a little metal box in the corner for a freezer compartment. ( A photo of the inside of that antique can be seen on a post in 2007. It is the 2nd photo.)

Sad to see them go.  Nothing lasts like this anymore.


Comments

Jill said…
love our freezer(s). actually we had one you had to bend over to get into. we got it for Christmas about 12 years ago from my parents. not super pricey. but it was hurting too much on a nearly constantly pregnant belly... so we got something different and my parents got the little freezer for overflow. they had given their old big one to one of my brothers that had a bigger family. i think it still works, too.

what we really like is our machine which is an upright and it's typically used by health depts and such, it can be either a fridge OR a freezer. with the flip of a switch and some time. nice when you buy half a cow and have it processed and tucked away to use up! then if your cow is gone you can store extra sodas, etc.. also no one hits their head on a 'standard' fridge/freezer combo. win/win!
Intense Guy said…
My parents had a freezer like this one - it lasted years and years and only died when it was moved to a new home (something knocked the internal rust around or something)- they've been through 4 "new" freezers since then in about 2/3ds the number of years. Today's stuff is junque.
Everything is disposable now, so sad that we are a throw away society instead of a build it the best we can society:(
karmyn R said…
Believe it or not - some people will buy these old relics and use them to make other things - like egg incubators.
Nancy said…
A great post!

As Far Side stated, everything is disposable and is manufactured that way. It is far less expensive to purchase a new appliance than to repair the old one. How on earth did we get to that point?
ChrisB said…
Not long after we moved to this house the chest freezer we'd had for 16 yrs decided it didn't like the move and being put in the garage. We replaced it and that one is still going but that's only 27 yrs so a mere baby compared to this one LOL
Moms Musings said…
I had a small Sears freezer, bought in 1971 and gave up on in 2007 because I was afraid it would die on me when it was full. How I miss that little freezer.
GJ in Seattle said…
Wow! Today we replaced our 1960s Sears Coldspot Time Bank upright freezer with a Kenmore. Only reason we did is because, for the first time ever, it started shutting off on us randomnly. 50 years. That is what I call a durable good. Here's hoping this Kenmore lasts at least 50 years, too!
Anonymous said…
I googled 'how long will a Sears Coldspot freezer' last and found this. Reason was I was curious if other Coldspot's last as long as my parents Coldspot has. It was purchased in the early 1960's, was moved four times, and is still going strong over 50 years later. When it does go, it will be sad since the replacement probably won't even last ten years.
Unknown said…
My mother purchased a coldspot chest freezer in the early 1950's. In the 1970's she gave it to me and if we hadn't had flooding of our basement I would still have it. It was over 50 years old when it died due to water flooding basement. I loved that freezer, the baskets were made of metal (no breakage like with todays plastic ones). It had a quick freeze area down one end BUT the greatest thing was that the floor of it raised and lowered as you took out or added stuff. The walls were very thick and it weighed a ton; more movers cursed over it than anything else they moved. When the kid closed you knew it was closed.
My mother paid a lot for it at the time but it more than paid for itself. You'd like to say we've come a long way baby but todays appliances have nothing on the old ones. Never been able to figure out why no other manufacturer hasn't copied the raising and lowering of the floors of freezers.

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