Cordomatic Retractable Clothesline Reel, Linen-Textured Case with Cast Aluminium Bracket, Philadelphia, c. 1943–1963

The Piece

A wall-mounted retractable clothesline — a spring reel in a case, with the line paying out through a guide in the side and winding itself back in when released.

The case is a shallow drum in soft blue, finished with a fine woven linen texture pressed into the surface so it reads as cloth rather than as metal.

It sits in a cast aluminium bracket, unpainted and bright, drilled for two screws and shaped so the reel stands proud of the wall and the line runs clear.

Cast and printed on the back: MFG BY CORDOMATIC, 1726 N INDIANA AVE, PHILA. 32. PA, with a model number.

History & Provenance

The address dates this piece to a twenty-year window, and it does it precisely. “PHILA. 32. PA” is not a ZIP code. It is a postal zone number, and postal zones have a start and an end.

They began in May 1943, in 124 large cities, and they began because of the war: thousands of experienced postal clerks had left for military service, and the men and women replacing them did not carry the city in their heads the way a twenty-year veteran did. A number written after the city name told an inexperienced sorter which part of town a letter belonged to. The system eventually covered 131 cities.

They ended on 1 July 1963, when the Post Office Department replaced them with the Zoning Improvement Plan — the ZIP Code — and the two-digit zone gave way to five digits nationwide.

So a case printed with a Philadelphia zone number was made after May 1943 and before July 1963. That is not an estimate from style. It is a date printed on the object by the postal system.

The linen texture on the case is worth noticing. A clothesline reel is a hardware item, and hardware in this period was painted smooth and left at that. Pressing a cloth weave into the finish is a deliberate attempt to make a laundry fitting look like part of the house rather than part of the plumbing — the same instinct that gave kitchens crackle-finish canisters and bathroom scales in pastel. It is postwar American domestic design doing what it did best: making the utilitarian presentable.

And the object itself belongs to a vanished daily routine. A retractable line is for a household that dries laundry outdoors or over a tub every day, and wants the line out of the way the rest of the time — pull it across to the opposite wall, hook it, use it, unhook it and let the spring take it home. Domestic electric dryers were expensive and uncommon through most of this period; the line on the wall was not nostalgia, it was the dryer.

Dated on the postal zone in the printed address: c. 1943–1963.

Product Details

Why It Belongs in Your Home

The best small antiques are the ones that carry a date on themselves, and this one carries a twenty-year bracket in the printed address.

That makes it a good object to hand somebody, because the story is short and it lands: the number after the city is a wartime postal zone, it exists only between 1943 and 1963, and the Post Office printed the date on the thing without meaning to. Very few household items can be pinned that tightly.

The colour and the texture do the rest. Soft chalky blue with a pressed linen weave is an unmistakably mid-century American surface, and it sits beautifully against white subway tile, painted board, galvanised metal and old wood. In a laundry room, a mudroom, a pantry or a bathroom it reads as though it has always been there.

Mounted, it is wall sculpture with a purpose implied. Unmounted, it sits on a shelf as a small blue drum with a good bracket, and it needs nothing done to it.

A note on care and on use, and the second one matters. It is sold as a decorative piece and has not been tested. A seventy-year-old spring and a seventy-year-old line should not be trusted with wet laundry — if you want it working, have the line replaced and the spring checked before you hang anything from it, and mount it into solid framing rather than into plaster.

Do not repaint it and do not polish the aluminium bright. The pressed linen texture only reads because the paint sitting in it is original and evenly worn; a coat of fresh enamel fills the weave and the whole point of the case disappears.

Dust it with a soft dry brush and wipe the case with a barely damp cloth. Keep it out of standing damp, which is what takes the paint off a pressed finish and pits aluminium.