Dear Sir,
Thanks so much for the kind conversation at the phone this
afternoon. My name is Angelo from Pinerolo (Italy, north.west)
I'm working to restore an old GE Monitor Top, this refrigerator came to
Italy in late 1929 or 1930 (from information that I got from the oldies
of the family!). The fridge came as a Christmas present from a
relative to its parents, he was studying at the Montana University
(Butte University) as a mining engineer. This relative came back to
Italy around 1933.

Since the fridge came to Italy it was working with
no stop until after the war (1946-1947), my father recall that the
fridge was then taken to a local workshop and it was then converted to
freon gas because sulfur dioxide was then forbidden and was considered
to be very dangerous, nobody knows what they did on the fridge but they
certainly changed the ice box and then added a "silica gel" filter on
the roof of the cabinet (look at the picture).

From then on the fridge was working until early 1960s and then went down
the cellar and was forgotten. Few weeks ago I decided to rescue it and I
took it out, and .. tried to plug it... it works! with little noise and in less than
 1 hour the icebox goes down to -10 Celsius, just great! the thermostat is
not working anymore, but I think it can be bypassed with a new one if
necessary. So I decided to restore this beautiful refrigerator also
because it is part of our family history! I dismantled it and haven't
found any rust around! the inside of the door is still bare metal with
no rust at all, just amazing. The fridge is now at a car painter and is
painted white. The door chrome parts were still in good condition and
will be polished, the internal grills were little rusted and they were
sent to a local shop to be re-chromed. We are not going to use it 24h a
day, but we would like to keep it in working condition without using it
all year long, we will use it once in a while just to keep it running.

It works thru a transformer 220V to 110V (here in Italy we have 220V
50Hz). The gasket of the door unfortunately is in bad condition and I
would like to change it with a good one. I'm not sure if the one
installed is the original one, it is white color and goes under the
black plastic sheet of the door. On the door and the cabinet under the
chromes I found some numbers, look at the picture enclosed.

Then inside the top when I took away the "roof" with the motor I found
a loose small brass tag with the same number that is shown on the
back of cabinet (n.S4415388). I have seen your beautiful restoration works!
they are just great and looks incredibly nice, also the conversion is very
professional and well engineered, my very best compliment! too bad you
are so far away and send my fridge over would cost a big fortune!!
But I learned a lot from looking at the pictures, I must say a great professional work.

I hope I will be able to make a good restoration with my old fridge and
certainly it will be one of the VERY VERY FEW working old fridge in
Italy!!! very rare for sure here around! my father (83) still remind
that before the war neighbors' were coming to our home to look at this
incredible machine!! at that time refrigerators were science fiction!

Thanks again for your
kindness and patience,
I remain Yours Gratefully

Angelo.

PS: forgive
my bad English

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