General Electric Model F47 Spray, Steam & Dry Travel Iron in Chrome and Cast Aluminium, Complete with Original Box and Hang Tag, c. 1960–1970

The Piece

A travel iron from the years when travelling meant packing an iron. The shell is chrome-plated and still bright, the soleplate is cast aluminium, and the handle folds down flat against the body so the whole thing drops into a case. A moulded rubber saddleplate sits under the heel, a rubber bushing takes the strain where the cord enters the body, and a clear three-ounce water bulb feeds the steam and spray.

The cord is the original: black and white cloth braid, eight feet of it, ending in a flat two-prong plug with no ground. The soleplate is stamped GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. / CAT. NO. HF47 / MADE IN USA / 117 BRIDGEPORT CONN. / 650 WATTS 120 VOLTS AC ONLY / UL.

What makes this one worth writing up is what came with it. The original box is present — kraft board printed in orange and black, Use it at Home or Away across the top, the GE monogram, CAT. NO. F47. And the original hang tag is still attached by its string, uncut, with the price line still blank: SPRAY, STEAM & DRY TRAVEL IRON, Model F-47, the full specification on the reverse, PUB. NO. 81-6048, PRINTED IN U.S.A.

The tag is the rare part, and it is worth being explicit about why. Boxes get kept because they stack. Hang tags got cut off at the register or thrown away with the wrapping on Christmas morning, which is why a sixty-year-old small appliance still wearing its own tag turns up so much less often than one merely still in its box.

History & Provenance

General Electric bought the Bridgeport works in 1920 and built fans, irons and toasters there until the plant closed in 2008. So the address stamped into the soleplate confirms where this was made and tells you almost nothing about when — a point worth making, because it is routinely offered as though it dated a piece.

The dating here rests on the hardware instead. A cloth-braided cord, an ungrounded two-prong plug, an AC-only rating, and a chrome shell over a cast aluminium soleplate together put this in the 1960s, give or take — and that is consistent with how the model is catalogued in the trade generally, where the F47 family is placed in the 1950s and 60s. We are giving it as c. 1960–1970 and not narrower, because nothing on the iron, the box or the tag carries a date and we are not going to invent one.

The feature set is itself period evidence. The steam iron was introduced in 1926 and did not become a normal household object until the 1940s; spray was a later refinement layered on top, and an iron advertising all three functions — spray, steam and dry — in one collapsible travel body belongs to the era when those had become table stakes rather than selling points. Use it at Home or Away is a manufacturer telling you the travel iron had to justify itself as a second iron.

One inconsistency to explain before a buyer finds it and wonders. The hang tag says Model F-47, the box says CAT. NO. F47, and the soleplate says CAT. NO. HF47. This is normal for the model and the variant prefix appears across the family in the trade record; box, tag and iron belong together.

Now the part that matters more than any of the above, and we would rather lead with it than bury it.

This iron has been used. It has been used lightly and it has been kept extraordinarily well, but the soleplate carries fine scratching across the face and scattered white deposits — mineral scale from the water bulb, or starch picked up off a shirt — and that is the signature of an iron that did some ironing. The box is scuffed along the edges and has a torn patch on the top where a price sticker was removed. We are not offering this as new old stock, because it is not, and because that is a claim any buyer can disprove in ten seconds by turning it over.

The travel bag is not included. The hang tag advertises “Comes With Handy Travel Bag.” The bag is absent. Everything else the tag describes is present.

Electrical safety, stated plainly: this is sold as a display and collector's piece and it should not be plugged in. It has not been tested and we do not recommend testing it. The cord is roughly sixty years old; the rubber insulation underneath a cloth braid hardens, shrinks and cracks with age, and it does so on the inside where the braid hides it, so a cord that looks perfect can be bare copper under the covering. The plug is two-prong and ungrounded, on a metal-bodied appliance. If you want it working, have it inspected and rewired by someone qualified first — and understand that rewiring it will cost more than the iron and will replace the original cord that is part of what you are buying.

Product Details

Why It Belongs in Your Home

Chrome, orange kraft board and a hand-lettered tag are a colour story before they are an appliance. Set the iron on a shelf with the box behind it and the tag hanging, and you have a complete object with its own packaging and its own paperwork — which is a rarer and much better-looking thing than the iron alone.

It is the right piece for a laundry room that wants to be a room rather than a utility closet, for a sewing or mending corner, for a vintage kitchen shelf, or for a shop counter where something small needs to hold a customer's eye for four seconds. It also photographs unusually well, which matters if you are a dealer.

For collectors of small appliances, completeness is the entire game. Irons survive; boxes survive occasionally; tags almost never. This is the configuration that is actually hard to find, and it is why we would rather sell it honestly as a used iron with all of its paper than dishonestly as an unused one without.

A note on care. Do not plug it in — the reasoning is above and it is not a formality. Keep the box out of direct sun; the orange ink on kraft board fades faster than almost anything else in a room, and a faded box is worth a fraction of a bright one. Store the box flat rather than on its end so the panels do not bow. Leave the hang tag attached. It is tied on with its original string and it is a large share of what this piece is worth; once it is off, it is a loose piece of card that gets lost. Dust the chrome with a dry soft cloth and nothing else — no metal polish, no abrasive, no cream cleaner, all of which will cut through plating this thin. If the soleplate deposits bother you, leave them; they are part of the object's history and removing them means abrading cast aluminium. Coil the cord loosely rather than tightly around the body, because tight coiling is what cracks aged rubber insulation.