Very cool Mark, thanks for sharing this! Kenmore made the Commander for many years in various styles and colors including brown wrinkle-finish, dark gray hammertone, light brown, maroon and dark turquoise.

I believe (but Kenmore expert John Lucia can verify this) that the first Commander came out in 1939 and the last one in the mid 1950s with the first Ken-Kart which originally was just a "Commander on a Cart" and ultimately refined with subsequent models. There's a hint as to the date of this version - the code "846" and "revised 846" appears on a couple of the pages, probably indicating August 1946.

~Very cool~ But I wonder what about it distinguishes itself from the regular "Commander" to make it "Imperial Commander." Looks the same to me! Note the number code of 440 on the next to the last page, presumably indicates April 1940.

Thanks for posting this!

Then there's this, from the film "Rocketeer" -- a vacuum cleaner used to fool would-be jet-pack thieves!

Æoliandave, that's a very cool cart but I think it might be a vac-shop or bojack product because (a) it's not like any other Kenmore carts I've ever seen and (b) as you note, the pockets are adaptable to fit different machine sizes. All the Commander-model Kenmore machines on carts were the same length and width so there wouldn't have been any need for adjustable pockets. Here are a couple of illustrations.