Anyone know what this is?

[DesertTortoise]

Saw this on eBay. Is this another Wessel Werk powered brush? Another odd duck calling my name.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sears-Kenmo...730&rk=2&rkt=15&sd=291168039145#ht_945wt_1265

 

[dysonman1]

It was made by Singer, when Singer still made vacuums for Sears.

 

[DesertTortoise]

How old would you guess it is? I thought it might be pretty modern. I couldn't imagine it pre-dating the Hayden style brush Sears started using in the 1970s.

 

[super-sweeper]

More like,

1990s. Those nozzles appeared on Singer's own canister, along with the Kenmore variants.  

 

[DesertTortoise]

Now I'm really curious what these vacuums looked like. Any links to images and specs out there?

 

[eurekaprince]

Phil...allow me to introduce you to our friend Doug Smith - a fellow Canadian cleanerphile. Doug has wonderful web-albums of lots of vacs in his collection. Click the link below to go to his Singer page which shows the Ryobi-made Singer Power Nozzle canister made from 1991-1994. In essence, it is Ryobi's answer to the Eureka Express. Ryobi's plant was in Anderson, South Carolina.



http://smithcollection.altervista.org/singer.html

 

[super-sweeper]

EurekaPrince!

You responded to this thread the moment I clicked on it! I searched 2 pages of Google, and all of Rugsucker's warehouse photos, and the closet thing I could find was those older 1990s Eureka canisters (But my memory served that the singer looked like a gray Eureka canister, so I was partially right!

)

 

[DesertTortoise]

Look at these vacuum collections! So it was the Singer System 90 that was made by Ryobi, or just the upright? And the System 90 was sold as a Kenmore? Wow, never saw that one before.

I hope all those vacuums don't live outdoors and were only outside like that for displat.

 

[eurekaprince]

Sears contracted Ryobi to make some Kenmore vacs for them in the early 1990's. Ryobi made several uprights for Sears, and now it looks like they also relabelled a Singer System 90 canister vacuum for Sears as well. Don't remember seeing these Kenmore canisters in Canada though.

Though Sears has ordered Kenmore versions of vacs from many manufacturers (Sanyo, LG, Ryobi, Sweden's Electrolux, TTI), the primary source for their vacs has been Burtman/Whirlpool/Matsushita. Whirlpool bought the Birtman vacmaking operations at some point, and then in 1990, Japan's Matsushita signed a joint venture with Whirlpool to make Panasonic and Kenmore vacs for North America. I think eventually, Matsushita (pronounced "Motsushta") took over the Whirlpool vac plant in Kentucky completely.

As far as Kenmore power nozzles are concerned, it seems that Birtman/Whirlpool/Matsushita continued with an ongoing contract from Centec to design and produce these nozzles for them over the past few decades.

 

[sebo_fan]

Dont forget, Kenmore also sold a SEBO X1/Windsor Sensor upright under their own name.

 

[eurekaprince]

Hmm...interesting....did not know that Nar!

 

[sebo_fan]

I didnt know about it either until I joined Abbysguide.com and then this site: here's a previous photo from here, from a previous member. I know Kenmore did both 12 and 15" versions and SEBO entered contract with a few companies for "private label" brands in 1981.


http://www.vacuumland.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?6517

 

[kirbyvertibles]

I am a power nozzle nut but I have to say personally I think this was a terrible power nozzle.

 

[DesertTortoise]

Hmm, I knew LG was involved in making the Magic Blue canister and at least one of the powered brushes it used came from Wessel Werk (I have one, see Awwwww, ain't dat cuuuute), and I knew Emmerson Electric made at least one canister and several of their shop vacs, and was aware of the Sebo sourced upright. If I am to believe a reply directly from Sears regarding the manufacturer of my canister vacuums where I provided model numbers and asked who made them, Matsushita was making vacuums for Kenmore as far back as the 1970's. Even my oldest vac model number 116.29971 from the early 70's is a Matsushita product according to Sears. I have to believe their response is authoritative. It is interesting to know who else was making vacuums for Sears.

 

[fan-of-fans]

Thanks for the link to the Singer canisters, those ones with the PNs were really neat! I saw a Kenmore branded Singer canister early this year at a yard sale. It was gray and orange like the one in that link but I don't think it was wired for a PN. I thought about getting it because they are pretty rare but I knew it would be really loud and the only attachment was the upholstery tool so I left it.

The PN in this thread was also used on the Ryobi/Singer made Kenmore Cleanmore Home Cleaning System. It was for use only on dry surfaces when using the machine in dry vacuuming mode. There was another PN/scrubber that was to be used for wet carpet shampooing.