If there’s such a thing as a malaise-era collector stove, I’m pretty sure I own one (see photo). It’s a Tappan Gallery electric range that was manufactured about 1970. While I cook on a gas stove at my home on Mud Bay, the Tappan gets daily use when I’m at my vacation place on Treasure Island.
Do people collect stoves? Surely they must as people collect just about anything. I get it when it comes to coins, stamps, art, books, trading cards, toys, and cars. These items, except for cars, are small enough that you can collect them even if you have a modest amount of space. For cars, you can park them in your garage(s) or a leased warehouse. But where do you store the extra units when you have more stoves than kitchens? I don’t know, but I’m sure stove collectors have figured this out.
So why do I consider my Tappan collectible? Most important: the way it looks. You won’t see anything like it in a modern appliance showroom. The glass panel at the back of the stove lights up to illuminate the burners when overhead kitchen lighting isn’t enough. There’s also an oven light. The superstructure, which houses the oven and burner controls, extends the stove’s unique design and accommodates two high-end features: a warming shelf and an integrated overhead fume hood (no outside venting needed). The overall look is unified, functional, and, to me, cool. Not bad for an era when American manufacturing and design (for automobiles anyway) produced mostly forgettable, uninspiring products.
The Tappan is about 55 this year assuming my guess on its year of manufacture is close. It was included with the house when I bought my first home on Mud Bay in 1978. The seller didn’t know how old it was then. At the time, I pegged it as between 5 and 10 years old. There’s no definitive date in the User’s Guide. Thus 1970 is an estimate.
About 10 years after I bought the house, the refrigerator died. In shopping for a replacement, I joked with friends that I would probably come home with a new refrigerator and a new stove. Sure enough, in a package deal, that’s exactly what happened. At the time, the Tappan didn’t look collectible, it looked out-of-style. Plus, I was seduced by the new stove’s sleek built-in ceramic burners. My plan was to donate the Tappan to the Bremerton St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store when the new stove was delivered.
St. Vinny’s said they could take it but only if it was super clean. So I got to work using just about every stove-cleaning product sold at the QFC. I wanted my stove to stand out when it competed with the other donated stoves at the thrift store. After an all-morning effort on the day the new stove was delivered, the Tappan was immaculate. “There’s no way I’m donating this now,” I thought. “Not after this much work.” I had the delivery guys move it downstairs into the drive-in cellar for storage.
Fast forward a few more years. There was a low-end electric stove in the cabin that K and I bought at Treasure Island. It barely worked and it looked ugly and cheap—even for a vacation place. When it died, I moved the Tappan from Rocky Point out to Treasure Island. It fits perfectly in the old stove’s slot and has been there ever since. I think it’s happy at Treasure Island—and collectible.
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