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thatwasherguy

thatwasherguy

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 13, 2019
Messages
333
Location
Kentucky
Hey everyone! Hope you’re all well. Today, I stopped in Goodwill, and had to do a double take when I saw this sitting on the shelf. I’d wanted one of these for a while, but couldn’t justify the high price that they go for online. Needless to say, it quickly followed me home. I’ve ran it for about three cycles so far, and everything works. However, I believe the thermostat needs to be adjusted, as it gets the toast border-line burnt on the lightest setting. Overall, $8 well spent.
Thatwasherguy.
 

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appnut said:
What is this?
Click to expand...
Vintage toaster... I have one. You simply drop the bread in the slots and it goes away until it's done. Then just a nice click, and it slowly rises from the slots... ideally toasted to perfection, without the noisy mechanism ejecting the finished product. These were about 4 or 5 times the price of a cheap Proctor Silex in the 1980's. They were sold from somewhere back in the 1940's-1950's... 8 bucks is a deal, just needs to get the control working correctly.
 
thatwasherguy said:
Hey everyone! Hope you’re all well. Today, I stopped in Goodwill, and had to do a double take when I saw this sitting on the shelf. I’d wanted one of these for a while, but couldn’t justify the high price that they go for online. Needless to say, it quickly followed me home. I’ve ran it for about three cycles so far, and everything works. However, I believe the thermostat needs to be adjusted, as it gets the toast border-line burnt on the lightest setting. Overall, $8 well spent.
Thatwasherguy.
Click to expand...
 
I have one - one of the best toasters ever made - Technology Connections covered how these masterpieces work - fascinating technology - for their day a pretty pricey, premium toaster - I love mine - I do have it plugged into a APC surge protector power strip, rated at a full 15 amps - or 20, I forget which - for safety, I make sure to turn that switch on the APC "off" when I am not using it - that way if something gets dropped or knocked into it it won't activate - On mine, i bought it, and had it serviced by the toaster museum people I believe - they cleaned it, replaced the nichrome wires, etc - made sure it is a good "working" model - not a showpiece necessarily, though it looks good. I used this today on toast, it does a much better job than other "new" toasters I have had, and when you see the technology involved in their "radiant" system, it is obvious as to why it browns so well - they made these for about 50 years for a good reason. I remember years ago my mom bought me a new $7 toaster - which wasn't worth seven bucks! You had to hold the lever down to keep it toasting - not quality as these Sunbeams are!
 
Thanks for the replies everyone!

I’ve been using it for the last couple of weeks or so, and have been loving it. It wound up needing adjustments to both the radiant control (a small hex head screw underneath the right hand handle) and the actuator mechanism (a flat head screw in the center of the bottom), but it’s now working perfectly (yay for easily serviceable designs). The radiant control is incredibly consistent, and it is incredibly fast, much like my other vintage Sunbeam. I still can’t get over just how much fun the automatic rise and lower system is to observe. Definitely a keeper.

Thatwasherguy.
 
Sunbeam, radiant control, toaster

My parents got one of these for a wedding gift and we used it for many years, it was repaired once or twice.

About 1959 we replaced it with a GE pop-up toaster, which was just superior to the Sunbeam. The main advantage of the GE was it toasted more evenly because it had the same type of heating elements on both sides of the bread the GE was also a lot faster. It started toasting instantly when you pushed the lever down and the toast instantly came back up when it was done.

I remember when we first got it how fast it was one of my mother‘s quick meals was creamed chipped beef sauce, and she would give one of us boys the instruction to toast 12 pieces of bread quickly when we were ready to eat.

The first time we had the GE toaster it was amazing how much faster it was. You didn’t have to wait for the Sunbeam to heat up, drop the bread slowly and then slowly cool and raise the bread back up. The GE was also more consistent every piece of toast looked the same.

Sun beam certainly did build some very good small appliances overall but I was usually more impressed with the small stuff from GE.

John L
 

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