[Sca-cooks] OOP -- Does anyone own an Oster Kitchen Center?

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

I gather this is a sort of Poor Man's KitchenAid, but perhaps not so  
poor as I had supposed...

Last month I boxed up and brought home with me an assortment of small  
kitchen appliances all coming under the general heading of "Oster  
Designer Electronic 'Kitchen Center' ", and various attachments for  
same. Basically it is a motorized base such as might drive a blender  
carafe (which is included), a mixer with various attachments  
(included) and a food processor (included).

I _think_ this is the slightly medium-end model without the meat  
grinder and sausage stuffing attachment.

Well, it turns out the mixer arm thingy has one slightly damaged clamp  
for holding it in place on the motor housing, so I was looking on eBay  
for a replacement for the Mixer Arm, and I'm seeing them for sale. I'm  
also seeing entire sets like the one I own for what seem like  
ridiculously high prices for what's got to be a 15-20-year-old small  
appliance.

In this case, while the machine seems not to have been all that well- 
cared-for in recent years (it's pretty grimy; my Mom didn't see very  
well, lived alone, and had arthritic fingers, so while she kept her  
place pretty neat and orderly, there were some occasional lapses in  
the general standard, because sometimes she'd either clean something  
until it looked clean to her, or until her hands pained her, and  
sometimes that wasn't enough).

Well, anyway, someone seems to have taken great care to preserve the  
original instruction manual, with my late father's credit card receipt  
stapled inside the back cover. Apparently list price was $256, but he  
got it both reduced on sale and marked down, for a grand total of  
$129, and this was in 1990.

The only thing I really remember about this appliance was that the  
proprietary food processor attachment was known for some reason as the  
Disco Chef, which I remember thinking screamingly funny for the  
unbidden visual it necessarily conjures, and that the mixer was the  
Implement Of Choice for large quantities of mashed potatoes.

Well, I'm seeing sets like this on eBay, sets that aren't new, for  
pretty close to the 1990 list price in some cases, and certainly at  
least as much as my Dad paid in 1990. Plus shipping. What I want to  
know is, why? Have I stumbled on some kind of Secret Power Weapon of  
the Culinary Mages From The Dawn of Time?

I mean, if I have, I oughtta know about this, right??? I mean, if I  
have any pretensions to being a Culinary Mage From The Dawn of Time  
and all, it would make sense, no?

What's the deal? Anybody know? Is this just a reasonable-quality  
product line that has withstood the test of time and the forces of  
evolution, and stayed in production largely unchanged, for a long  
time, and still reasonably current?

Adamantius