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Home / The Museum of Mid Century Material Culture / woddities: wonderful oddities

First GE Partio Cart of the season — our Retro Renovation official sign of spring

Kate - March 27, 2015, Updated: June 22, 2021

Vintage Partio CartHere on Retro Renovation we don’t have a groundhog — for us, the first true sign that spring is around the corner is the first annual spotting of a GE Partio Cart for sale, this one, on ebay.  

Vintage Partio Cart

Actually, a reader tipped Pam to this one spotted at an auction earlier this month. But, we did not pounce fast enough to get photo permission. She recalls that she got the email about March 8, so we’re setting Partio Cart Day 2015 at March 8.  We’re gonna start to keep track.

From this ebay listing:

This is a 1950’s Partio Cart (yes pronounced Partio). Unit includes an oven, rotisserie, griddle, 2 burners and umbrella. Runs off of 220 Volt power. This has been owned by my family since it was new. Unit has not been used since 2005; at that time, all components were in working order (the clock and light I am not certain of). Unit is located in Utah, BUYER IS RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL SHIPPING COSTS. Please message me for more details.

Vintage Partio CartPartio Carts are quite rare, so we thought this might be the same one that Pam spotted at that auction, since she recalled it also was located in Utah. But nope, this ebay seller confirmed that this particular Partio Cart has been in her family since 1950. Seems like Utah is where the Partio is at this spring!

Vintage Partio Cart Vintage Partio Cart Vintage Partio Cart Vintage Partio Cart Vintage Partio Cart Vintage Partio Cart Vintage Partio Cart Vintage Partio Cart Vintage Partio CartMega thanks to ebay seller nanc.tanne for allowing us to feature her photos of this delicious looking vintage GE Partio Cart. We hope it finds a happy new home.

Read more about Partio Carts and vintage barbeques:

  • GE Partio Cart for sale on ebay (affiliate link)
  • Read all of our stories about GE Partio Carts
  • See more vintage BBQ grills

CATEGORIES:
The Museum of Mid Century Material Culture woddities: wonderful oddities

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Reader Interactions

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13 comments

Comments

  1. 52PostnBeam says

    March 31, 2015 at 7:45 am

    Nice one! Another item first discovered for this blog by me.. back in the day 😉

  2. JKM says

    March 30, 2015 at 8:58 am

    This photo is a cropped version of the original, which I’ve seen somewhere. In the left foreground are two or three well-scrubbed teenagers visiting and the two adults are looking at them. The overall vibe seemed to be the Partio Cart being an integral part of a well chaperoned backyard party – and not a very fun one.

    • pam kueber says

      March 30, 2015 at 9:04 am

      You’ve seen it here! See the archive at the bottom – you will get to it.

      • JKM says

        March 31, 2015 at 9:27 am

        Ha! I should have known it would have been here!

  3. Robin, NV says

    March 29, 2015 at 11:57 am

    The amazing thing about this Partio Cart is that it was used! It looks brand spanking new. Someone took very good care of it.

  4. Nan lewis says

    March 28, 2015 at 12:25 pm

    I’ve never seen one of these before! And since I am vintage 1951, they must not have sold a lot of these, but it sure is cool.

  5. Helen Payne says

    March 28, 2015 at 11:02 am

    I know there are fantastic things from the 50’s, like me, LOL! But this grill is the absolutely COOLEST thing I have ever seen!

  6. Ronda Vallejo says

    March 28, 2015 at 4:08 am

    This is fantastic!

  7. Steve H says

    March 27, 2015 at 8:37 am

    That promotional photo is great, but for some reason it always reminds me of a still from a Hitchcock film. Maybe it’s the slightly apprehensive expressions. They look like they’re waiting for the next bird attack.

  8. Jay says

    March 27, 2015 at 7:40 am

    It must be spring if you are posting a Partio Cart. Maybe winter will leave for good. The snow just melted from the lawns and I can see a crocus here and there. None of the previous owners ever put in a patio. Some day! There were just too many things that needed attention on the house. Happy Spring!

  9. Mary Elizabeth says

    March 27, 2015 at 5:26 am

    Good morning all! Hooray for spring! We just met with a guy who is giving us an estimate to put in a patio behind our 1959er ranch. (We were waiting for the snow to recede far enough so that he could walk around and measure.) So this Partio cart sighting is a breath of fresh air. By the way, are there any stories on your site about period-appropriate patios?

    I love in the old advertisements how the people dress for a backyard picnic/cookout (Northeast) or barbecue (South and West, I think). Ties and sports coats on the gentlemen, shirtwaists and heels on the ladies. Just think of the high heels vs. brick pavers. My family didn’t dress like that for picnics in the 1950s–of course, we usually were in my grandpa’s back yard on a river and going sailing later, so we had sneakers or boat shoes on.

    • pam kueber says

      March 27, 2015 at 8:11 am

      I tend to think this was a picnic… for a corporate photo shoot! But then, you knew that! 🙂

    • Allen says

      March 27, 2015 at 8:44 am

      I grew up in a ranch house built in 1960 in Tennessee. My parents still live there. It has an original patio in the back and it is simply a grey concrete slab with small pea gravel aggregate with random size broken quarry tile pressed into it at random intervals. Still looks good at over 50 years old. I had never seen another like it until some years ago I went on a trip to Ohio and many late 50’s early 60’s houses I went to there had the same type of patios. Come the find out from my parents the people that built their house in Tennessee were originally from Ohio. Maybe it was an Ohio trend for patios then or more widespread in the Midwest. At any rate my parents patio is a fine looking one and has definitely stood the test of time.

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