a lot of people mistakingly think that those stoves were made in 1979. however, i never heard why it was done.
Why did VC put "1979" on the inside firebacks?
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My guess is the dates tie back to when the casting patterns were made. VC was big into american craftsman ship and tradition and traditionally castings were dated. I worked with a Maine company many years ago in college that machined industrial castings for molded paper products, they had an old barn filled with casting patterns and still had a pattern maker on staff. Most of patterns were made of mahogany and most had dates. Even though the products we worked on were industrial, the pattern maker occasionally would put decorative details in the patterns. These days old patterns get bought up by collectors and are used for decorations.
Here is a pretty good story on the origins of Vermont Castings Defiant.
(broken link removed)
I remember when VCs were in demand, dealers would add big mark ups and force buyers to buy lots of accessories. I know folks who waited over a year to get their stove.
I used to work with folks associated with the Warren VT area where VC was founded. It was a hot bed of creativity. VC and Vermont Elm were founded there along with school of architecture and the company I worked for that made Windmills. VC was the most successful but Northern Power my employer for a few years got quite big before succumbing to Wall Street financial manipulations. They built many of the artic grade wind mills used all over Alaska. Here is long article on the area. It lost its formatting at some point but it covers the areas and the people. https://www.timesargus.com/news/the...cle_ea3e49c2-7d4b-5573-91a5-a3080c6ec75b.html
The general observation by locals 30 plus years later was that there were a lot of very smart and talented people that ended up in the area but they were far better at building businesses than running them. They would bring in wall street financial folks when the companies got big and inevitably would get pushed out. A couple of my coworkers had owned some of the architectural experiments they were built at one time or another and observed they were much better as art then as homes to live in.
Here is a pretty good story on the origins of Vermont Castings Defiant.
(broken link removed)
I remember when VCs were in demand, dealers would add big mark ups and force buyers to buy lots of accessories. I know folks who waited over a year to get their stove.
I used to work with folks associated with the Warren VT area where VC was founded. It was a hot bed of creativity. VC and Vermont Elm were founded there along with school of architecture and the company I worked for that made Windmills. VC was the most successful but Northern Power my employer for a few years got quite big before succumbing to Wall Street financial manipulations. They built many of the artic grade wind mills used all over Alaska. Here is long article on the area. It lost its formatting at some point but it covers the areas and the people. https://www.timesargus.com/news/the...cle_ea3e49c2-7d4b-5573-91a5-a3080c6ec75b.html
The general observation by locals 30 plus years later was that there were a lot of very smart and talented people that ended up in the area but they were far better at building businesses than running them. They would bring in wall street financial folks when the companies got big and inevitably would get pushed out. A couple of my coworkers had owned some of the architectural experiments they were built at one time or another and observed they were much better as art then as homes to live in.
ctyankee
Burning Hunk
I would temper my appreciation for VC to the original stove designs. They did have the issue of the one piece firebacks cracking and in my opinion went well out of their way to make the original buyers whole. Like many firms I expect there were a victim of their success in that the original stoves lasted too long, its pretty good testament that many of the original stove designs are still a viable heating source 40 years after they were built.
Sadly they did have a run of of fragile later model stoves that did not live up to their original reputation
agree that the pre-epa stoves are classics. kind of like a lot of pre-epa autos. durable, easily rebuilt, not too complicated, lots of parts available.
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