A Quick Build: Fixing the World's Greatest Toaster

Disclaimer: Nothing in this post is related to the first gen Scion xB.

Or cars.

Like many people, I enjoy good toast. And also like many people, I saw Technology Connections' video a few years back about the Sunbeam Radiant Control Toasters that were made from the late 40s to the mid 90s, and I was immediately hooked on the idea of owning one. I checked Ebay, and... yeah, I'm not spending $150 or more on a toaster, no matter how cool it is.

So I began to check the appliance section of every thrift store I visited in the hopes of finding one that someone had unwittingly cast off. I searched casually for two years, sometimes finding an old chromed toaster and getting my hopes up, only to have them dashed when I saw the toast lever on the sides. I wasn't expecting much then, when my girlfriend and I visited a store in Knoxville TN. We had casually split up to look at different booths when I heard her calling me over. I found her at a corner antique booth, holding in her hands the Holy Grail of toasters, complete and original! I couldn't believe my luck, and only $25 no less.

It was a little crusty and there was no way to know if it worked, but I bought it and took it home with me (after texting my brother to brag about my awesome score). I wasn't sure what I had in store, but I was excited to find out.

Following this one. I think I have one in a box that my wife stopped trusting. Guess I need to jump down the rabbit hole.

When I took electronics in high school in early 70s the course outline said it would teach me how to fix things like toasters. That toaster would have been a current model then. 
The most awesome things we ever did was to set off a flashbulb. This was a bulb designed during WWII for a plane at altitude to take photos at night. Everyone in the room was temporarily blinded by the powerful flash. Ah the good old days. 

Outstanding find for the OP.  Well done.

Nothing to compare to that, but I do have a couple of toaster stories.  My maternal grandparents had an old fashioned toaster when I was a kid, up until their death in the late 90's.  Like most old toasters, you put the bread on either side on a heating element, then once one side was done to your liking, you opened it, the toast slid down onto the open side, toasty side down, you then closed it to toast the other side.  After a bit a googling I'm 99% sure it was identical to this.  I wish I knew what happened to it.

The other was in the mid 90's when I'd moved here.  Some friends, another Ex-Pat British couple, had a toaster they'd got passed down from another family that had returned to the UK.  One day the toaster stopped working, so of course we whipped out some screwdrivers and started taking it apart on the kitchen table.  We open up to find a Sears inspection sticker inside saying the warranty would expire by some date in the late 60's.  Yup, we fixed it.  

I came here for Subaru Forester content...

I am not disappointed

I didn't know there was a Holy Grail toaster......

That's a Sunbeam T-20 toaster.  My grandmother had one.  If I remember right, she said she had bought it in the early 1940s.  My parents sold it in a garage sale after she passed in the mid-1990s.

Still worked perfect after more than 50 years

Your toast, uh, I mean post, made me think of this....
 

https://youtu.be/SHptn_3RyYE

Wow. I never realized how much my toaster sucked. Now I want one of these.

Ha ha ha - all the GRM guys are on Craigslist searching "toasters"......

If I'm not mistaken the first "hamburger" was cooked in a similar contraption and served on white bread.  Some place in old Boston or Philly.

My old hunting cabin as a kid had a pop-down toaster. I thought it was from the 1960's, but the only ones I can find are much older. It looked exactly like the one above, which is a 1935 model. We thought it was so cool. 

84FSP said:

If I'm not mistaken the first "hamburger" was cooked in a similar contraption and served on white bread.  Some place in old Boston or Philly.

Louis Lunch, in New Haven... arguably (and debated) the first brick and mortar home of the modern "hamburger". That's a discussion for another thread, but a very neat tidbit of history. 

So now I'm hunting for toasters. 

Nice find! I love a good sturdy old-school appliance. I'm more of a Dualit guy myself. Even today, they are still not made in China (yet). I found a used one a few years ago, stocked up on a couple replacement heating elements just in case (yes, they're serviceable!), so I should be good for another 50 years or so.

edit: here's what mine looks like. It has a good weight to it.

In reply to GaryC83 :

Love it sir.

AMiataCalledSteve said:

Disclaimer: Nothing in this post is related to the first gen Scion xB.

I enjoy knowing that we have Toaster Enthusiasts among us.  

In reply to GaryC83 :

You beat me to it, but I had to find them in action

In reply to GaryC83 :

Carve your name in the walls. 

Don't ask for ketchup. 

I actually have one of these, too.  An eccentric friend of mine collects vintage toasters, and he gifted this one to me after I commented on how cool their "daily driver" was.

Its really a nice thing to use, and I'm sure it will last me the rest of my life.

To bring it full circle, the starter for the sourdough came from Mezzanine.

Woody (Forum Supportum) said:

I enjoy knowing that we have Toaster Enthusiasts among us.  

I believe the colloquial term is Toaster Aficionado.

There is some good stuff on that channel.

In reply to RevRico :

Wow, that guy is incredibly hard to watch.