Futuristic 1970s Soehnle kitchen scales

When it comes to gadgets and accessories for your kitchen it's sometimes hard to get away from vintage scales of the sort found in a Dickensian sweet shop with a selection of weights and no funkiness. Luckily the 1970s provided us with cool stuff for the kitchen, along with dreams of jet cars, food pills and teleporters. In this case, even the normally-reserved Germans got in on the act.

These 1970s Soehnle scales are from Germany and you may have noticed the large orange weighing dish which can handle items under 15cm in diameter, and can be turned upside down to save space if you want to hide such a lovely weighing machine away.

Soehnle continue to be a high quality manufacturer of kitchen goodies today, and this set will take weights of up to 2kg, so plenty for most kitchen tasks. They're currently on sale for £12.50, and would certainly make sorting out your ingredients a lot more fun.

Get a complete 1970s kitchen

You could spend a lot of time and effort sourcing all the furniture for a complete retro kitchen. Alternatively, you could buy this complete 1970s kitchen, which is currently going for £150.

That's right - the entire 1970s, 'possibly Hygena' kitchen is for sale, giving you the complete retro set-up in one swift purchase. That includes:

• Sink Worktop - 2670mm x 630mm deep
• Dishwasher Worktop - 2140mm x 530mm
• Hob Worktop - 1370mm x 530mm
• Cooker unit - 600mm x 1980mm tall
• Cupboards under hob - 450mm wide
• All other cupboards - 525mm wide
• 4-Drawer unit - 525mm wide
• Kitchen sink - 1050mm x 460mm
• Working extractor unit - 685mm wide
• Utility Worktop - 1740mm x 670mm
• Utility sink - 1000mm x 500mm

Two things to note - firstly the oven, dishwasher, fridge and bin aren't included. Secondly, you'll also need to uninstall it all with help from the seller, so be prepared to get your screwdriver out. But the good thing is that taking it apart yourself will make it a lot easier to put it all back together in your own home. Top tip is to not only label everything to know which parts go where, but also take plenty of photos at each stage - it'll save you swearing as you try to reconstruct various seemingly random bits of the cupboards!

Two 60's kitchen cabinets for the price of one!

Finding one 1960s kitchen cabinet in reasonable condition for a decent price is nice. Finding out that there are actually two of them is even nicer! Three drawers up top, sliding doors below, and a nice vintage yellow colour would make this example stand out for a current price of just 99p.

But when you take a closer look at the description, it turns out there's actually a second cupboard included in the price. The pictured cabinet is complete with the second example apparently missing two handles. But that's a solvable problem, or you could use it for spares or repairs. If the price doesn't rise much more before the end of the auction you could probably find a way to resell the second cabinet to possibly make the first one free - how much more of a bargain could you get!

1960s retro gas cooker for a pretty hot price

We haven't often seen vintage gas cookers for sale, and obviously you'll need to keep safety in mind if you purchase something like this - getting it checked out and installed in proper fashion to avoid blowing up your retro kitchen when you're trying to heat up some soup.

Then again, you could be really sneaky, and just hide a microwave in the oven compartment!

It's a 1966 Flavel Equerry 3 Automatic Gas Cooker, complete with instruction manual, and some seriously funky red knobs. The seller points out that it's in very clean condition and the pictures certainly back that up. Plus it's currently on sale for £20 with a bit of time left.

There are actually a set of regulations regarding the sale of secondhand gas cooking appliances, which include that gas shouldn't escape, the burner should light promptly, carbon monoxide shouldn't be given off in large quantities and any cut-off device should work correctly.

Vintage Kitchen Larder Unit for serious restoration

OK, so here's a kitchen larder unit for someone who isn't afraid of some serious restoration and repair work, but it's still cheap enough to make it viable if you have enough motivation. At £4.99 with no bids yet, you could pick up this 1950s retro Hygena kitchen larder unit which has been with the same family since it was bought in 1953.

There's quite a lot of grime to clean considering the larder unit has been stored in a garage and sadly the bottom panel has rotted, so would need replacing. But all the bits and pieces are there, and it does have a lined bread compartment and vegetable cupboard with three wire wracks. A good thorough clean and a new bottom panel and you're ready to rock, or alternatively, stripping and repainting would be a viable option. At 6ft high, you'd currently be paying less than £1 per foot!

Retro kitchen scales and cocktail stools going cheap

Proving that you can still find some seriously interesting items online which are bargain buys for your chic vintage kitchen, we've found these rather nice vintage Tower kitchen scales which currently have no bids with a day left, and a starting price of £14.99. Worth watching, because if noone bids it's always worth making a cheeky offer.

And we were also pleasantly surprised to find these two retro-style bar stools for just 99p with 24 hours left. Having watched countless items like this end up becoming rather expensive, or being resold by professional sellers for a lot more, it seems like a lot of bargain hunters might still be recovering from Christmas and not be up to their normal eagle-eyed eBay watching.

OK, so the stools are collection-only, but even including a quick trip in a van or car with a large enough boot, you'll still get a sizeable saving. You might have missed out on stylish New Year's cocktails for this year, but you'll be prepared for the end of 2012 in style!

And although you could spend a bit of time polishing up either the scales or stools, they're cool enough to fit into a vintage or retro kitchen with a quick wipe of a cloth, which is always handy. It's always nice when you don't have to refurbish absolutely everything!

Vintage kitchen cabinet for £1?

It seems that prices are definitely rising for vintage kitchen cabinets and furniture on eBay at the moment, so it's getting a bit harder to track down some bargains. Luckily, there are still some great finds available at reasonable prices if you know where to look, and if there's something to be discovered, I'll find it!

This vintage kitchen cabinet with a formica top isn't the prettiest kitchen furniture out there, and you should notice that the seller currently has no feedback, but if you're willing to take a chance on a new seller, you could grab a very cheap bargain with bidding currently at 99p and no bids with 4 days left.



Plus, the dark photography is actually a bonus, as it might mean other bidders won't be paying attention to it, and if you can grab it dirt cheap, you could easily give it a bit of an update, or use it as a cheap project base.

I'd be tempted to consider repainting it a brighter colour, and possibly doing something with pop art on the top to replace the formica. Some suitable art or photos under a clear cover would make it extremely funky without costing a lot to achieve...