Another toaster thread

[petek]

Just what I needed to cheer me up after a rotten day dealing with clearing out moms house and relatives. I went to visit her at her new apartment and on the way home did a little detour over to Value Village where I saw this little gem on the shelf for $4.99. I've had a couple before and I really like them. This one was super clean, hardly looks used all that much . I love the design/shape of these things, sort of wedgey Jetsons and they toast pretty good as well.Also they've quite petite but the Thing is they get very very hot, almost like a little blast furnace while it's toasting and they stay burning hot for quite awhile afterwards.. probably why they were taken off the market back in the 70's. If you ever see one, grab it.

Behind it is the Panasonic Flash Xpress toaster oven I bought for mom about 5 years ago.. Fantastic toaster over,, too bad they stopped making them. It cooks by halogen and UV lights.. super fast and makes the best toast bar none.. not even a Sunbeam makes better toast nor as fast as this thing does.

 

[turquoisedude]

Oh neat - I love those GE reflector type toasters!  Perfect for thick-sliced bread, bagels and english muffins if you don't wish to use your toast-r-oven. 

 

I guess there'd have to be a 60-page liability disclaimer if they sold them today  ("Caution - inserting a fork or other metal utensil into toaster may result in electric shock, burns, or death")...

 

[twintubdexter]

I always wanted one of those Panasonic toaster ovens. When they were discontinued they were very reasonable and available in silver and white. Try and find one now. There's a used one available through Amazon...$999.00...maybe some wealthy nut will buy it.

 

[westingman123]

Surprise! It's a Westy.

The best toast I've ever encountered is from a Westinghouse toaster. The timer's sound (chicka chicka chicka) takes me right back to childhood. Pardon the blurry cellphone pic, please!

 

[bellalaundry]

Great finds...

Love to find one of those Panasonic toaster ovens! Great look to them.

Guy

 

[gansky1]

Nice GE - I've only seen a couple of those over the years, do you know when GE carried them in the line?  They look similar in shape and style to the toaster-r-ovens.  What is the wattage rating?

 

Perhaps we need more on the Panasonic oven as well, don't think I've ever seen one live and in person.  Do you think the Breville oven is similar in performance?  Terry had one and always sung it's praises.

 

The Westinghouse toaster is beautiful, another brand I rarely see around here.  I wonder if Westinghouse just wasn't popular around here or if it wasn't carried by the larger department stores.

 

[petek]

I recollect our neighbors having the GE reflective toaster back in mid to late 60's , I thought it was cool looking way back then. I'm pretty sure it was in the 1974 Consumers Distributing catalog which I can't put my finger on right now to check.

The Panasonic's an odd duck, I said ultra violet above.. I should have said infra-red and halogen lights. There's an infrared and halogen bulb on top and just a halogen on the bottom. It gets hot almost instantly and starts cooking, no preheating necessary at all. It maintains the set temperature by having the lights flash on and off as required which is sort of neat. For the minute or two it's making toast the lights just stay on. Sure would like to know why they would discontinue something that works so well, got rave reviews etc.. even my mom who eschews gadgetry thought it was the best thing since sliced bread (toasting as such lol)
The other nice thing about it is that it's not all that big, just fits 4 slices of bread and that's it, so it's not taking up a whole lot of counterspace.

 

[petek]

Found it from 1974

 

[lordkenmore]

Is that 1974 catalog page Canadian, as I assume?

One thing that interests me about this GE toaster: it seems like it could handle a wider range of bread sizes/dimensions than a lot of "regular" older toasters.

I picked up a Proctor-Silex (I think) toaster some time back. It's nothing too terribly interesting--but it is old enough to actually be US made. One of the hassles with that toaster is that the slots aren't wide enough for a lot of modern bread. At least, without tearing an edge of the slice of bread off. (I'm talking the better grocery store bread aisle bread, not "artisan." Home baked could also be a huge pain, unless one is good at slicing fairly thin slices.) Some modern bread might fit, but I'm not about to eat the cheapest store bread, loaded with high fructose corn syrup and who knows what preservatives.