General Electric C3...
... Take a look at this. It's a CE C3 canister. Wow, do I have some history with these.
I work with a fellow, now 89 years old, who has a number of rental properies. Since he started his business in the 70's he's been using these GE C3's as his main vacuum.
As long as I can remember (he's a family friend and I've known him since I was a kid), he's been using two of these in rotation. That's for decades. Of course, he never serviced his vacuums or even really took care of them. They are now in terrible shape and perform awfully. The woven hoses are leaky and structurally unsound. Sometimes the metal inside the hose breaks and the structure collapses. The woven sheath will constrict and the hose at that point will be less than half of the original diamenter. He's cut the hose and spliced it at that point several times when it's happened, and now the hose is too short to use effectively. Sometimes he will use duct tape to wrap the hose when it develops a puncture. The hose itself is held onto the vacuum body with a kind of rubberband sling that he's fashioned out of a cut innertube from a car tire.
One of the vacs pooped out but the motor on the other one still works, surprisingly. The bags for these are a cloth shakeout bag. HORRIBLE! There is only the leaky cloth shakeout bag and no other filtration. I used to vacuum the hallways with this vac and spit out lots of mucus streaked with black dust after I was done. I tried to empty the shakeout bag into a plastic shopping back to contain the dust but it was very messy.
After a while the vac had almost no suction because of the leaky hoses and connections. I remember trying to vacuum with it and the suction was so low that I wouldn't have been able to pick up a styrofoam packing peanut with it. Also, vacuuming took two hours or more. Now that I got wise and am using a better vacuum, it takes less than half that time.
And yet he insists on using that old vac. He says my other vacs are s***ty and won't touch them. How's that for a stubborn old guy who can't be constrained by common sense?
When he got the C3 he liked them so much that there are somthing like 8 or 10 C3 bodies hanging from a rod in the back exit of the building. All are rusted to some degree and who knows if they work?
Anyway, I though I'd post this as I was shocked to see how much the seller is asking. The hose is clearly different than the one I know, which is woven and beige in color.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Gen...mod=190652021551&ps=63&clkid=7209040513343662
