What fridge is this ??

[ricster]

Hi All,

I'm new here and hoping to gain some knowledge about this Coca Cola Fridge I have acquired.

I am from Johannesburg, South Africa and it seems the Soda Machine Cooler/vendor culture is not as strong here in South Africa as it seems to be in other countries across the world. Having said that, I have recently acquired a Coldflo Coca Cola fridge from my father in law. This fridge was salvaged from a huge factory where it was beaten a bashed around a bit, yet in true "old school" tradition..... The fridge still works perfectly.

Here are a few photos of the fridge. I don't know what is original and what is not. all I know is that it keeps my glasses and Coke's ice cold..... to the point of almost freezing if there is too little drinks in there and its left closed for a long time.

[ricster]

some more pics

[ricster]

and yet more pics.....

[ricster]

So ..... The all important question..... What type of fridge is this?

All I know is that its a Coldflo. It seems all other tags have been removed at some point. In $ value what is a fridge like this worth, and is the flip up lid original to the model or should it be sliding doors?

Also some  slapped a coat of red ( not even Coke red ) all over the fridge covering up the original painted Coca Cola signwriting.....  

Cheers and thanks for any info you may have on this machine.

Ric

[ricster]

I'm not sure if I'm on the right track here either...... The Cornelius brands logo is very similar to the coldflo that's embossed on the cover on my fridge....

[jholmgren]

I suspect it is local to your area of the globe.  My Google-fu is usually fairly strong, but I'm not finding much on Coldflo  - the Cornelius company did indeed own the name/company ColdFlow ... but I don't think ColdFlow and ColdFlo are the same.

Here's the only other thing I could find - a machine on OLX which is I believe similar to eBay - I saw ads for OLX on TV when I was in India.
http://welkom.olx.co.za/q/cola/c-808

I also found a classified ad that claims ColdFlo was owned by Vendo at one time.  Again - probably localized to your corner of the globe.
http://www.pandahi.com/1016820829.html

Jim

[GreenMo]

I've seen many off brands but never Coldflo.

[ricster]

Yip the one on OLX looks very close to mine, just has 2 sliding doorrs where as mine has flip up lid.

The one on the pandahi site is quite possibly a South African Machine as the term "GENIET COCA COLA" is Afrikaans ( similar to dutch - Holland ) for "Enjoy Coca Cola" And that site is definitively not South African based on the telephone contact details.

So if Coldflo made these possibly under licence to Vendo or visa versa, I wonder how old this fridge is then?

It is also definitively well made and not a cheaply and nasty !!

[jholmgren]

My guess would be 1970's based on the style and what I've seen of similar machines from other manufacturers.

[johnieG]

Probably Canadian Eh? 

[georgescustompaint]

Haha I don't think its Canadian EH
Lol.  Haven't seen them here....   

[ricster]

hahaha.... could possibly not be ...Eh ??

I was also thinking the styling was looking more towards the 70's era with the square corners and more box shape ..... 60's still had some nice curves, like a fine woman....Eh?? 

[ricster]

From the photos on the 1st page, does anyone have an idea on how I can turn down the thermostat. It gets so cold that I'm worried its going to crack the glass bottles.

I looked all over, inside and out, for a thermostat knob or something similar but found nothing. I still have no clue who made this fridge or how old it is.

[ajf5577]

I can't help with the thermostat, but it looks 70's to early 80's. I wish it was embossed.

[Creighton]

Welcome to the board!! Have not seen another like yours. So will be of limited help.
May never had a T-stat. Looks late 40's early 50's to me. Ran my search engines as well.
It is a fog machine :-). Not.
Creighton

[ricster]

hahaha.... a fog machine it may just be.... when you open it up its so damn cold in there that the fog overflows the rim.......hahahaha.

Yeah it very weird. I cannot even find a company in South Africa that even manufactured fridges for the beverage industry !!! I know there were a LOT of them when I was growing up as a kid. Every fuel station, and every corner grocery shop both big and small had these in them. There must have been many many many thousands of them made. There are a few Cavelier chest fridges around, but I think a huge portion of these fridges disappeared into oblivion over the years. There just doesn't seem to be any information locally either.

From memory, I seem to recall this style and shape, which is making me think its 70's, possibly very early 80's. The compressor and working bits underneath are all still original. I doubt a single hand has touched it since it was delivered to which ever shop it sat in for years !!

I thought that maybe seeing the British had a rather large population in South Africa at the time that maybe these machines were imported by Coca Cola from the UK, but cannot find any info. ( thought maybe Westinghouse UK or something similar). I know that Fuchs was quite big in South Africa at the time and did do refrigeration, but again I seem to come up with a blank.

Hmmmm.... so maybe mine is like the golden nugget of Coke fridges cause nobody has ever seen it.....hahaha.... Must be worth billions .......hahaha ( yeah right.... I'm so unlucky that if I was one of triplets, I'd be the one bottle fed..... )

[ajf5577]

( yeah right.... I'm so unlucky that if I was one of triplets, I'd be the one bottle fed..... )

LOL