Vintage copper electric kettles.

[Techman]

I bought a 'job-lot' of vintage kettles at the auction sales this week. I paid OTT (well for me anyway) for them at £12, but I just had to have them, they really are lovely - they're probably worth that in copper and brass! When I got home I had a nice surprise when I took the lids off in that the middle one shown in the first picture below still had its original mains lead rolled up inside (the resident safety tester missed that one). It's cotton covered rubber and it feels like it's gone a little bit 'ridged', but tested ok, as did the element with no leakage to earth.

My brother had just come round and it was time to brew tea, so I gave it a rinse out and after finding my round to square pin adaptor I filled it with water and plugged it in. My brother didn't want a 'brew' from the first boiling (very sensible) so I emptied it down the sink and re-filled and boiled it again. We were drinking the tea in less than half an hour of me arriving home, with water boiled in a vintage kettle that judging by the 5 amp round pin plug, had probably not seen water or mains in 50 years.

The other two kettles both test open circuit. Having worked on this type of kettle in the past, they usually have a couple of flat elements inside the bottom. It's usual that one goes o/c leaving the kettle running on half power, so it could be something other than the elements, we'll have to see, but they're not going to be for general use anyway.

[Techman]

Some more pictures:-

[Alf]

Wow! Nice patina, what do you do? Clean it up or leave it on.

[keithinuk]

Pretty much the kind of thing I would pick up, I don't know about all the polishing, I do enough of that already.
At least you can use one of them, I see the flat plug type ones a lot, but never with the plug.
I have a big old copper tea urn, works perfectly, but a big pain to polish.

[kalee20]

That's great!

Polishing would be a pain though - polished copper looks lovely but something like a kettle, designed to get hot, only tarnishes faster in use!

[Hampus]

Does it say 200-210 volts on one of the kettles? If so, maybe the element has been overloaded? Or maybe it don't makes much of a difference?

[Techman]

I was wondering if anyone would notice that, it does indeed say 200-210 volts.

I've had a closer look at the two kettles that tested as open circuit and found that it's just the input pins that I can't get a reading on, I can get a resistance reading from the elements from the rear of the pins.

The larger kettle has a three section element and the smaller one has a two section element. From my calculations it's my belief that both kettles have one element section that's gone o/c. If I use 240 volts in the calculation on the large kettle, the wattage works out about right, so it could have had replacement elements rated at 240 volts. If, however, I use 210 volts in the calculation, it indicates that one of the three element sections has gone down, which is what I suspect has happened. This kettle would work quite well on two element sections as they would be running on overload, but they probably wouldn't last very long. This must be a very old kettle to be rated at 200 volts!

The smaller kettle has a cut out mechanism that I've never seen before (second picture below). It's obviously gone wrong at some stage and been by-passed and part of it is missing, which is a shame. There's a patent date on this mechanism dated 25th March 1930 - as shown in the last picture below:-

[ex seismic]

Amazing! Kettles with serial numbers.

Gordon

[HamishBoxer]

Watch that asbestos.

[McMurdo]

Nice simple overtemp cutout that pushes the connector out if it gets too hot. Never seen one do that!
Lovely collection, I have one similar to the middle one with the ridged bakelite handle.
My brother bought one home from a carboot a few years back and plugged it in, but it apparently went off with a big bang when it came to the boil...put him off vintage kettles!


PS found some 30's kettles in this old catalogue:

The kettle below was a 'Mysto' so called because the manufacturer was a copper works who made garden misters/sprayers. They still exist today but are better known as 'Hozelock'.

[kalee20]

I have seen overtemp devices that push the connector out (maybe knocking something off the surface, of course!) but I don't recall seeing a kettle with a contact-type element that heats the inside's base. All the ones I have seen have used immersion-type heaters.

[McMurdo]

Indeed, some in the 1960's did that. I've never seen one operate is what I meant.

[happytiger]

I can remember these kettles. The one we had was a "Premier" we hired it from NCED(,Newport Corporation Electricity Department) it often threw the plug out,(because it boiled dry) the elements were bolted to the base, and several times it went back for repair. The ejection of the plug went with load bang, no chance of any arcing here,everything was made to be used with DC mains(,the real stuff), it needed a lot of force to push home the connector and reset the mechanism.
Those were the days.!

[matthewhouse]

I have one of those Premier kettles, the first one in photo 1. It works really well and boils quickly and quietly. I use it often, though it's probably a health hazard. The thermal cutout is dated 25th March 1930, it's done well! Both the elements work too, they are rated 4.9Amps at 200/210 as above. The supply voltage here is 245V and it draws about 5.5Amps according to a basic ammeter. This one has a plate on the bottom stating that it's property of the Woking Electric Supply co.

I stopped using it recently when I bumped the handle and broke the brass near the top! Looking at the dirt in the break it must have been almost gone for some years. This thread encouraged me to repair it, so I have cleaned up and soldered the part back on.

Polishing is hard work, especially as I do it by hand, but it does look pretty. It's the first thing visitors notice when walking into the kitchen, I'm always asked about it. When I bought this it was heavily tarnished and took some serious effort to get it back to that nice salmon pink colour, it never lasts though.

[keithinuk]

That's one advantage of having a 14" buffing wheel at hand and another reason why I have more oil lamps than electric, copper that's been heated and cooled over time is much harder to polish by hand.

Not a kettle, but my water otter.

[Herald1360]

Originally Posted by Techman

This must be a very old kettle to be rated at 200 volts!

Not necessarily that old......

We were still on 200V in Worcester until the early '60s, though AC not DC. I was old enough to be interested in what the "conversion man" from MEB was doing and I'm still young enough to be working.

[Techman]

That's a very nice kettle, Matt. Yours has the complete 'Premier Quickset Device'. I hadn't come across this type of cut-out before. I've seen the type that throw the connector across the work top many times before, but never this other type that does not eject the connector, but uses an internal 'knife switch' to kill the supply instead. Do we know how that one works? It looks like a kind of gravity latch, but part of mine is missing.

Kevin, I think we'd like to see some more of that very interesting catalogue

Looking around, there seems to be a few of these 'Premier' kettles about and it seems that they were used a lot by 'local authorities', but I haven't seen any with the rather nice extra brass part on the lid.

At my other old house, I used to be able to reduce the mains measured at the consumer unit down to 195 volts if I turned everything on in the house, so the 200 volt kettle would have been good there

[McMurdo]

Few more

The Xcel was made by Siemens