The Antique Toaster that's Better than Yours
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 พ.ค. 2024
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That title isn’t hyperbole or clickbait nonsense. This really is better than your toaster. At least, I think so. Seriously, can we make this the norm, please? If we figured it out in 1948, you’d think we woulda kept going with it. I mean, really.
Looking for the previous video?
• The Electromagnet in Y...
How about the second channel video where we improve and fix these?
• Sunbeam Radiant Contro...
Want to read those patents that were on the screen? You’re in luck! They’re right here!
Here’s the patent for the toaster itself:
patents.google.com/patent/US2...
And here’s the patent for the thermostat:
patents.google.com/patent/US2...
Also, here’s a link to that fan-site I mentioned;
automaticbeyondbelief.org/
Do you want more of these videos to happen? Well then, you should know that you can support this channel on Patreon! Patrons of the channel have turned Technology Connections from sporadic hobby to… well, my job! And it’s super cool! If you’d like to join the fine folks you saw on-screen in pledging some support, please check out my Patreon page. Thanks for your consideration!
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1960: We'll have flying cars in the future
2019: Look at this toaster from 1960 that does much more than yours!
Crap toasters and Twitter feuds: the world of the future is a great disappointment.
@@tophers3756 Funnily enough, this toaster is the solution to both of those problems. One just needs a bathtub to go with it.
The KitchenAid Proline 2 Slice Toaster is actually the modern day version. Has all the features of this Antique Toaster in the video and more.
@@i64fanatic $209US is quite a bit of money to spend on a 2 slot toaster. Now you know why this design disappeared off the market!
If only they tried to improve other forms of technology besides computer technology.
I showed this video to my parents. My father is an engineer, my mother a teacher. They both very much enjoyed the content, and your style of presentation.
A month ago, on my birthday, I unwrapped a package from them. It was a gleaming, factory-condition Sunbeam Radiant toaster. Thank you for this moment.
underrated comment!!
Hope you enjoy your cool new toaster and get years of use out of it
I have one and its great
I am actually both unspeakably jealous and ridiculously impressed by your parents. I hope they and your toaster give you many more years of happiness.
Wow your parents are amazing
Awesome!
I was at a goodwill yesterday and one of these beauts was on the shelf for 5 dollars and somewhere in my mind i was transported to watching this video at 4 am in bed 3 years ago. I couldn't exactly remember why sunbeam toasters were elite but i bought it and came back for all the validation I could have asked for. I am now in the toast phase of my life and you are the reason why.
Sunbeam appliances are one of the most reliable kitchen tools ever , they're well made and last an incredibly long time plus they're very affordable in price which is all the reasons why the company has existed for so long
You lucky dog. Those go for $120+ on ebay. I've been trying to get one for under $75 or so since this video came out with no luck. The only ones that go that cheap are non-functional ones and the sellers never say what's wrong with them.
If they knew what was wrong with them, they'd fix them and sell them for $120 instead. It's almost always something easy to fix, so it might just be worth the gamble.
Going on 4 years and the “oh god he has a *third* one” still makes me bust up laughing 😂😂😂
14:40
loololollool
🤣
🤣🤣
"Through the Arcane Dark Magic of buying a THIRD one..."
"Oh god, he has a third one" The somewhat self-deprecating humor there is just funny as hell.
You wanted one of these toasters? Too bad, some guy from TH-cam bought them all.
@CyDragonGM It's an idea made up by people to control other people.
It's a completely different format (of joke).
CyDragonGM it's not an actual place.
For me at least. I respect your beliefs btw
You can bet he bought a 4th one, just in case!🤣
My Sunbeam looks even older than this one, really enjoyed finding out how it works.
(Edit: I replaced the cord tonight and found out it was made in January 1951)
Why did you always have all cool toys?
Doesn’t matter how old it is, the important thing is that does if FLY SAFE?
Toast safe?
What kind of toaster do they use in space Todd? There's and idea for your next video or a possible colab? thank me later
I love mine (yep, only have 2 though). Yay, Sunbeam!
My dad was an electrical engineer and when we opened this little baby, he was in awe at the engineering. His words " this thing is perfect". The only thing we changed was the clothed electrical cord with a new cloth electrical cord. That was 30 years ago and it's in my kitchen now and still toasting the perfect toast. Every single time
I have not used a toaster in years, nor do I have an affinity for toast, but this video has completely convinced me that I can no longer live comfortably without this Sunbeam toaster.
Imagine they could use this video as their ad in the 1970s, like here's a man from the future saying our toaster is the best even in 2020s
@@jovis6995 okay wait but why havent products done that comically…does it fall under false advertising laws?
There are probably many of these in thrift stores that deal in used & donated products. They may need a simple clean up, repair, or adjustment but maybe not.
@@livelongandprospermary8796 but what if you tell people in the ad to kill your grandfather? what if the toaster was inspired by this video?
Oh, you COULD!
As a mechanical engineer that HATES modern toasters... thank you for this. I've been looking for a good toaster for years.
Yeah. Toaster manufacturers got wise to the fact that their old toasters were seriously impacting their sales. Now all they produce is cheap crap you are expected to replace every 5 years. I use a toaster from the 70's. I clean and relubricate (food-safe grease) the sliding parts about once a year, and it works great!
jumpanama did you ever find one?
I know! Tell me about it. Toasters and Printers/Copiers. It is the 21st century and they still make me feel like I am stuck in a Rube Goldberg nightmare!
Anything made in the USA is superior to modern products.
At least in Germany we have two sizes of toast - so it would not be that big of a problem to find toast that fits :)
A jump scare free toaster?! Take my money!!
So, apparently... Cuisinart makes one. AND it has a bagel mode!
@@AndrewThibeault this is critical: what is it called?
@@AndrewThibeault Answer please, the world needs to know.
@@A_Box It's the Cuisinart CPT-420, though I don't think it works the same way as the Sunbeam Radiant. The Cuisinart description is that it's motorized and it doesn't have a lever.
Good quality lever toasters have a brake mechanism to reduce the shut off jump scare. You just need to be willing to put down a few extra bucks on your next toaster.
It finally happened. After 3 years of keeping my eyes open at local antique and secondhand stores I found one of these toasters. Breakfast has never been so exciting. Thank you so much for this entire channel.
When I was 3 years old, LONG AGO, my dad bought my mom a new "General Electric" toaster! I inherited this, and it STILL WORKS GREAT! It is so SAD what "home appliances" have become!
OMG!! I just watched a video on a $400 toaster with a touch screen and wifi and this Sunbeam toaster puts it to absolute shame! The amount of engineering and cleverness in this design so long ago is amazing. It seems to be a trend before I.C's and micro transistors that everything was overcome using pure physics and analog not electronic signals and I think this shows how things that tech can give us now can be done using clever engineering and more materials.
Its fun how everyone is roasting that thing in the comments xD
For what POSSIBLE reason could a TOASTER need WIFI?!?!
@@Devin_Stromgren I know right.
@@Devin_Stromgren So they can charge you more money for it..
...whatever is a TOASTER using WIFI for?
Heh, my grandpa still uses one of those daily. He learned how to fix it and it's been going strong since 1961.
Learn how to fix it
I love that. My dad has his dad's Rockwell bench grinder that has been working since about halfway through the 20th century. I love good solid equipment and not the disposable equipment mentality of today.
Make a video!
@@kdawson020279 Alot of tools today are still maintainable, sadly appliances however are getting increasingly tricky and complex.
Dosent help when the "throw away" culture has seeped into so many other consumer goods.
@@kdawson020279 my dad had a lot of old 1960s to 1980s era tools and auto repair/diagnostic equipment. He had made it clear it was supposed to be mine, but my uncles and cousins raided everything before I got to it. I was way too trusting and didn't rush in to take everything that was supposed to be mine. I have absolutely nothing of his now except a couple of channel lock wrenches.
"Oh god he has a third one"
That KILLED me.
Much like exposed mains.
XD
I saw this video when it first came out, rushed out to eBay to get my toaster only to find that they were like $75 so I decided to wait. Upon waiting they went up to $300. Finally, after waiting for 3 years, working ones are now around $150 and broken ones are around $50 to $75. I bought a broken one and it arrived today. It took a little while to figure out what all was wrong with it but all it amounted to was a screw that had fallen out and part of the darkness adjuster had gone missing so I had to make a new one. Now I've got it all tuned up and working and I couldn't be happier! Finally... I've gotten my closure on this toaster.
That’s..a little absurd
@@longebane you are not wrong
I once aspired to be a nuclear engineer. But now I want to be a toaster repair man.
😂
A nuclear powered toaster 😲, now that I would like to see !
I work in engineering and the cleverness in this thing makes me feel inadequate.
Totally worth a patent.
Imagine being the guy who came up with the idea of the wire being the tension spring for the lifter, and trying to pitch it to the boss, before making a prototype..
Boss would be like, "get outta here Jim, you and your hair-brained ideas, you be the death of this company.. I shoulda fired you a year ago!, and boy, I would have if you weren't my nephew!"
Jim goes and builds a working prototype, and returns to the boss..
boss, upon seeing the mechanism: Well, would you look at that!
I’d rather retire this dangerous toaster. If old electronics used powered elements (even when off) and paper insulation on wires, who knows what other dangerous design decisions exist inside? It’s worth $20 to get a modern appliance with safety features
@@electrictroy2010 Probably asbestos paper, likely would outlast any silicone/plastic insulated wire a person might replace it with. As for the live internals, don't stick your fingers in it (just like a bulb socket). I have come across mis-wired receptacles, and some so worn out that the polarizing feature no longer works. 120V mains shock usually isn't too bad, that 60hz muscle contraction will wake you up though.
@@electrictroy2010 Who knows? *We* know. He showed us the insides. The non-polarized non-grounded plug is the only electrical flaw, that's easily fixed by changing out the cord. There are no electronics.
@@mattgraham4340eh depends on the person actually but feels buzzy
the kinda faint _"oh god he has a THIRD one"_ instantly made me love this
The marshtomp in your pfp looks like he is trying to imitate Salsa from Mother 3
Makes me think there are multiple of Him
Was looking for this one in the comment section
Wait why is there 2 guys posting in the same time? The same thing?
OK wait nevermind there is a glitch when a comment you saw before appears on another comment... Most often on mobile
My husband found this toaster for $5 at goodwill this weekend and went through a bag of bread calibrating it, and ultimately it's everything you advertise and more. It's the best Valentines day gift ever.
1 year later, hows your toast?
My parents had a toaster like that when I was a kid in the 1960s. And yes, there were the partial remains of a Wonder Bread bag melted on the side.
My parents got this toaster as a wedding gift in 1969 and I've been using it for the last 20 years or so. It's always the first example cited when I go on a rant about planned obsolescence and the ever-more insipid manufacturing quality.
I’d rather retire this dangerous toaster. If old electronics used powered elements (even when off) and paper insulation on wires, who knows what other dangerous design decisions exist inside? It’s worth $20 to get a modern appliance with safety features
@@electrictroy2010 Who knows? *We* know. He showed us the insides. The non-polarized non-grounded plug is the only electrical flaw, that's easily fixed by changing out the cord. There are no electronics.
My aunt received one as a wedding gift in 1947. She used it daily until her death in 2018. That is 71 years!! She said the only repair it ever required was replacing the electrical cord and plug in the late 70s. No idea what my cousins did with it after she died. Hope someone is still using it!
@@electrictroy2010 for a guy with electric in your name you sure weren't paying attention to the design of this toaster, inside or out
@@electrictroy2010 I suspect that paper is actually asbestos.
Did I just watch an 18 minute video talking about a toaster?
Yes. Yes you did.
Yes. Yes we all did. And I thoroughly enjoyed those ~18 mins
I don't know. Also, this video is 18 minutes AND 28 seconds long.
It could be worse, it could be a talking toaster. "Can I just ask one question... would anyone like any toast?"
first time?
What really blows my mind is how they calculated the exact coefficient of expansion necessary to expand the wire which engages a lever mechanism. It's genius because it doesn't necessarily bend anything which means it'll never break. Amazing stuff, I'll be keeping an eye out for this gem!
In all likelihood they just got a rough guess then tried different lengths until they dialled in on the correct one.
More likely than not they just tested it a bunch, or laid out a long strand and measured the shrinkage. That, and it could easily be designed to only actuate a little bit, even if the wire expands or contracts more than needed
Can I just say how overjoyed I am that there is an entire channel dedicated to deep dives into extremely mundane technologies that I find strangely fascinating that is also well produced and entertaining
You made me giggle so hard when I heard "Oh God he has a third one." I love this channel.
One of the aspects about these old devices that I find so stupefyingly magical when I see them operate is that they didn't have microcontrollers and modern electronic sensors to rely on. They had to use some elegant, genius physical workarounds, often making use of physics I never even knew about or would have thought to utilise.
This toaster has a modern sensor (didn’t exist for the first 5000 years of recorded history). That temperature sensor is a fairly recent invention.
@@electrictroy2010 , I beleive what made it go down and up , was a bi-metal strip , when electrified caused one side of the metal to expand faster than the other .
At least that is what I think .
@@electrictroy2010 it’s a bimetallic strip, not a sensor in the modern sense of the word.
@@electrictroy2010 You know what they meant, being pedantic for the fun of it isn’t really helping anyone.
@@baseduck 👍👍I Know, RIght? Reading though these comments, I am under the impression that "electrictroy2010" is a troll who doesn't REALLY have a grasp on basic electrical knowledge, in an earlier post he said that this toaster should be retired due to its ELECTRONICS! We know that there is NO electronic device in this toaster, not even a damned diode! If someone is going to be even pretend to be an expert (or JUST pedantic) about THIS subject (especially if one is using ELECTRIC in their username!), They should AT LEAST know the difference between an electronic device and an electrothermal one. 🤷♂️ I didn't go to college, Hell I can't even spell CMU or MIT, and even I know the difference. 🤦♂️
Never in a million years would I have thought I would watch a 18+ minute video about toasters. However, I was intrigued and captivated. I did not understand all of the terms or explanation of how it works, but it was very interesting!
Haha I have the same with a lot of videos on this channel!
As a electronics teacher, i find it amazing that it works only by termo mechanic means. With a few minor adjustments of current materials and security criteria, it could not be much better that it already is.
Toaster manufacturers: "$60 once in 50 years? mmm, we'll skip this one...."
10$ Every Ten years?
Hell yeah
@@matthias18 $5 every 5 years? I'll take em!
@@DumDoDoor $1 every 1 year?! SIGN ME UP!
Sunbeam was a really important Brand. So fine, you sell your toaster at not much profit. BUT, you sell Quality, and the customer then buys a kitchen Mixer; toaster oven; hand mixer; blender; you get the idea.
The saying that poor people can't afford to buy cheap appliances has been lost sadly.
“Oh god, he’s got a THIRD one?!?!”
THAT gained a sub from me.
same here
14:39 for anyone that missed it
@@andreasdettkjelston7415 that freaks me out when it happens
My mind just automatically keeps thinking of all the toast this guy made just for the vid. I wonder if he ate all of it…. This is what I think of.
Through the years and decades, that toaster has proven itself to be dependable and hard working. Such a brave little toaster!🎉😊
I see what you did there. Worthless!
The price of these toasters after this video was a proper Brave Little Toaster goes to Mars moment frfr
Thank you sir you just solved a 50 years old mystery for me... when I was young I was watching it every morning and could not comprehend how the mechanism worked and what made it come up and down. Now that I do understand I truly am flabergasted. Incredible feat of engineering.
Me too. I used one once as a kid and was amazed by how the bread slowly went in and slowly came out as toast. Even though I never really forgot about it completely, I put it out of my mind and assumed it was some set of motors and gears.
@@theclearsounds3911 , yup, me too. Far more clever than I knew.
I love this channel. There's no way I woke up today thinking I was going to be riveted to a 20 minute documentary about a 70 year old toaster.
It's marvels like these that made me want to be a mechanical engineer (and cars of course). The fact that this is a completely mechanical toaster (the only electrical components are the heating elements themselves!) that is 100% automated is a beautiful engineering marvel! I was watching one of your earlier videos and was thinking of ideas to try to slow down the release of the toaster via a damper or some other mechanical means but this is perfection! Imagine too, if they produced 4 slice versions for families today (with updated safety standards of course)!
It is items like this that functionally wonderfully, and forever, that is the reason us old farts complain about the devices of today. Sunbeam said "Here's our toaster. You'll love it. You're welcome." And people loved it, and here it is, lasting forever. You never need to buy another toaster, and you tell all your family and friends about it, and Sunbeam sells a ton more of them. I would suspect newer and cheaper caused it to go by the wayside, and the people didn't know what they had until it was gone.
*patent filed march 28 1942*
USA: Let's mobilize industry to win this war!
Sunbeam: TOAST
I just uncontrollably laughed too hard.
Thanks for that. Also fuck you for that
There may be a war going on, but for keeping up morale on the homeside, you gotta have toast!
1942 : Companies working hard to make both bread and Nazis toast.
@@ethanlamoureux5306 Soliders need to eat, too!
@@souta95 The US entered December of 41 dude.
"Give me a lever and I'll lift the bread" -Archimede
Oh, there was more than one Archimede?
s
My mother got a Sunbeam toaster as a gift at her bridal shower in 1947. I have it now and it's perfect!! I had to replace the cloth covered cord a year ago but other than that it's the most amazing toaster. My mother was always a bit regretful that she gave it to me instead of holding onto it. I can't believe the price. Knowing that now, that was one hell of a gift.
I grew up using my parents' Sunbeam T-20 and have had my own VT-40-1 for the last 40 years. I've often wondered "what devilry makes the bread go up and down?" Great video explaining how these work, thanks for putting it together.
Journal, April 24th, 2019: TH-cam now thinks I need to learn about 20th century toasters. Motive unclear.
That's easy. The bread companies want people to buy more bread. So they paid TH-cam to recommend bread related stuff in the hopes that people will have a craving for something bread related such as toast.
Which leads to more sales of bread.
That or TH-cam occasionally throws random things out to see if you like it.
I don't think "why is this in my recommended" applies here. We all know why. This toaster needs to be seen because it is better.
@@Nirrrina These were my exact thoughts!!!!
Unicorn!!🦄🦄🦄
need one for my Vegemite toast
I got multiple recommendations for both this and the space heater video. Then I got the FlexPlay one not long after it came out.
I haven't seen daylight since.
Reliable, rugged, simple, easy to fix, yet if you touch it while it's working it'll burn you and/or shock you at mains voltage.
Ahh, I love the 1950s.
And amazingly, people weren't electrocuting and burning themselves left and right. When means that as a society, we have gotten that much more incompetent and stupid, just like our toasters have become cheap pieces of junk.
@@cowsongs, they were electrocuting and burning themselves, sure, not everyone, but a lot of people. Nowadays, society cares not only about the majority of people, but about other smaller groups.
@@MrPaukann I never met a single person who accidentally electrocuted themselves to death with a toaster!
@@saveusbloodymess, ok. How large is your sample size? 100 people?
@@MrPaukann read what he sent again
My wife and I bought one of these at a garage sale 25 years ago when it was already 50 years old. It appeared to be all original, including the fabric wrapped cord. It did eventually break down after 20 years, but we of course had it repaired. We also have three adult daughters and they all have the same model. These appliances run circles around anything on sale today. After watching the video, I'll instal and retro style three wire cable and plug.
I got one of these toasters as a hand-me-down from my grandfather's estate, and I had no idea there was a darkness control under the handle. My husband and I have been using it for 2 years and just assumed we have to run it more than once if we wanted it more toasted, but it was set to a perfectly golden doneness that both of us liked so we didn't mind.
You've probably driven the price up on ebay for these toasters now.
He most definitely has....I checked.
The Techmoan Effect? Nah... the TechConnect Effect.
He did buy three, after all.
Soon one will be $300 on eBay even if non working
It's almost 150 USD buy it now😂
Ironically these "no lever" toasters have more levers than their "with lever" counterparts.
its*
@@TheAechBomb In this case the apostrophe is used to indicate possession as opposed to a contraction
@@vvkool9653 apostrophes are only possessive if used after a proper noun:
Sarah's shoe
the Teacher's ruler
in this case 'its' is used similarly to how you might use 'hers'
the shoe is hers
the lever is its (it looks weird, but it's correct, english is strange)
@@TheAechBomb
So If I write " The lever is its' ".
Is it correct?
@@vulekv93 Bad syntax.
A more appropriate statement would be "That is its lever".
However, yes, that would be appropriate use of 'its'.
As the previous person said, English is a weird language. The old axiom is "English is parts of three other languages in a trenchcoat, pretending to be a single language".
I grew up on a Sunbeam toaster and they are indeed TERRIFIC and a thing of beauty. My mom had hers for 60+ years and...it just kept toasting. And THIS is the primary reason why no manufacturer will ever build one again because it would violate their own product design obsolescence plan.
Thanks for the time travel down memory lane. Makes me miss my mom and dad even more. 🙂
Things like these are absolutely fascinating. Not a single microchip or motor, yet it achieves complex "smart" movements.
Purely with genius engineering based on physical principles.
Minus the designflaw in the wiring...
That toaster cost today's equivalent of $244 when it was first introduced in 1949.
That makes sense because the only modern toast I've found with the same automatic feature costs $250
Bronstig last week I bought my first toaster from Lidl. It cost 23€. It has 3 years warranty and it looks nice. And I like when it finish toasting and the slices pops outside the toaster and on the floor
@@EriqT Can you tell me what modell/brand that has the same function regarding measuring by temperature and not timer?
And there's one on ebay right now for bid at $415 USD that's restored (bidding) 😂
Matt Wilson there are plenty on eBay for less than $200...
That lowering/lifting mechanism is genius, but genius that relies on two of the oldest physical principles known to man; thermal expansion/contraction and levers/fulcrums. Proper old school engineering, and it's basically bulletproof. Even if the heating element wire eventually snapped, you could just buy some nichrome wire and repair it in half an hour.
Designing a modern equivalent would require a microcontroller, geared servo's or a worm/wheel drive motor, limit switches, safety cutouts, an LCD display and the circuity/components to link all of that together. Plus "cool touch" body with space-grade carbon-ceramic coating, RGB lighting, and a mobile app.
But you need the app. How else would you know your toast is done?
Um, why would it need an LCD display? It already can sense the temperature from the bread itself so I say it just needs a louder alarm so you can hear it announce the bread is rising back up!
I know you are exaggerating but today we could also just copy the system and make it better.
sixstringedthing ya gotta love the mechanical and electromechanical ingenuity of the 60’s and 70’s. You should watch Techmoan’s video on auto reverse, now that’s the most over engineered thing I’ve ever seen.
@@trainman5371 If you're talking about the Akai mechanism that actually flips the tape over inside the machine, I've seen it and it's one of my favourite Techmoan vids. So over-engineered, so unnecessary, but so elegant in action! :)
I have this and the matching Sunbeam 8 and 10 cup perk-o-lators (and sugar and creamers). All still work just fine. I know the toaster and 10-cupper were purchased around 1950 as they are family pieces. I bought the 8 cup one about 20 years ago as it's a better fit for daily my single-guy life. Make about 3 modern coffee mugs (coffee cups used to be smaller). I grind my beans with a 1940s Kitchen Aid grinder. Thing has a scary-powerful motor in it. Scary-powerful. Sounds like the end of the world, but works great. I have a LOT of old stuff that works just fine. Some needed a little maintenance/cleaning/lubrication, but people used to expect that after 10, 20, 30 years. Now people throw everything away. I'm listening to 78s on a 1958 Sonic record player right now. Three new capacitors and a few drops of oil and good as new. That took basic soldering skills, but still, easy enough.
My parents received one of these Sunbeam toasters as a wedding gift nearly 50 years ago, and it's been our family toaster ever since. I still use it daily to this day, and it still functions perfectly!
As a child, I actually thought our toaster was just old and broken because it didn't POP the toast up like I saw on TV/movies.
Plot twist: This video was filmed with his 4th Sunbeam toaster. They make much more decent footage as well!
Mikosch2 I’m reading this on a 5th toaster that I got at a Technology Connections garage sale
Depends on how dark you want the video
He also lives inside one now, of course.
He has 8 let’s just be honest
I'm waiting for him to turn one into an air conditioner through some little-known thermal design trickery.
It's been 2 years since I watched this video. I finally found this toaster at a thrift store today. Just wanted to say thanks for giving me higher standards for my basic appliances.
@Alexander Ratisbona Almost didn't look at the appliances that day. Went to tie my shoes and was face to face with it at eye level. Only 14 bucks. Could not have snatched it faster. Last toaster I will ever buy.
@@quncle lol like a scene from a movie
@@quncle poor salesman, let's pray for him not to have seen this very video.... I bet you'd easily reached out 114$, but were lucky enough
@@quncle 14 bucks?? I hope the guy who sold it didn't steal it
@@brrrrrr goodwill, so it was donated. Probably handed down and then considered junk by the new owner.
I just watched a LTT video about a $400 toaster. I instantly thought of this video. I came here to rewatch and wish, once again, I had one of these toasters.
I finally bought one for my sister. This finalizes every member of my family owning the greatest toaster of all time. Life goal complete.
My parents bought me one a few years back as they had one we grew up with.
What he doesn't explicitly mention, although it is implied in the patent wording, is that these toaster will produce slices of the same darkness regardless of how recently the last slice was toasted. Most modern toasters won't do that.
And regardless of what bread is put in.
He literally says it in the video
4:32
And regardless of whether the bread is frozen or room temperature!
It does not. Unless spaced out. The thermostat needs time to cool, otherwise the second batch gets a head start with the heat.
14:40 _oh god, he has a third one_ is just killing me😂😂😂
I didnt even notice that till I saw your comment and rewatched
I have one of those (almost) the same which I inherited from my grandmother. It still does better toast than any other toaster I know. I take great care when I pack it to move between houses, as I don't want it to ever break. So nice to see a video on it even if the video is a couple of years old now. :)
My Mom and Dad have used this exact model every morning for nearly 70 years. We've only had to replace the plug. Elegantly bullet proof.
If you do not know why the Sunbeam Co. stopped making these in 1997 you do not know about "Chainsaw Al", noted as one of the worst CEO's of all time. Al Dunlap who died just this year, made his reputation through massive layoffs supposedly for cost cutting reasons, everywhere he went. The scheme was repeated in other companies, by other CEO's including the one in charge where I worked a whole career: the Hughes Aircraft Co. Al was worse, though, as his accounting frauds also contributed to his ability to generate impressive short term profits. Look him up.
Now to Sunbeam. They had a great reputation and like such companies they had a loyal, but aging workforce ripe for the picking. Al and the others of his ilk specialized in mining corporate reputations, and in the sunbeam case "modernizing" the product line as cheaply as possible.
That toaster needed an experienced worker to calibrate the sensitive switch, and of course the engineer/manager who oversaw the many mechanical (analogue) pieces that had to remain in tolerance to perform as the ones you have still did. They were probably among the first to be offered a packaged early retirement. The rest of the workers just had to find something else in a job market that had already been decimated by the recession of '93. In my case I survived several layoffs to eventually take my retirement after the part of Hughes I worked at had been sold for half again more than GM had paid for the whole company 5 years prior. I like to say that that deal reflected the Reagan era "Voodoo economics" made famous by George Bush Sr. way back when he ran for president in 1980 before he was invited to join Reagan on the ticket. GM had complained when they bought Hughes that the main capital of the company "Went down the elevators and out the front door every day at 4 PM." Then the first thing they did was start layoffs. Much of that "capitol" was among the first to skeedaddle, leaving behind a lesser grade of engineer, myself included due to cupidity about how the world works. Selling large amounts of the workplace buildings or leasing them to other companies followed on. Those of us remaining had to double up in our offices. Unpaid overtime became a necessity to fulfill contracts.
That toaster illustrates that we once had great engineering talent, and intellectual property to hold ourselves above the ordinary, much of it now in the hands of Chinese manufacturing, while we languish in a "bean counters" paradise.
Thank you for sharing your story. I never knew about Al Dunlap, or what he and people like him did to American ingenuity. We really lost something special in that era. But not everything is lost. When the garden of creation is bare, and old crops have long since disappeared, channels like Technology Connections plant seeds in the hearts of new creators. We only need time and care for those seeds to grow.
At least we can buy inferior versions of our own designs back from countries that somehow manage to grind up workers faster than corporate America at a slightly cheaper rate then we'd pay if we just took care of own talent. Sounds like good business to me!
Under capitalism, profit seeks the lowest cost of labor and materials.
-So say the works of Adam Smith and every economist since his day.
The executive is incentivised to maximise profit by reducing costs, the largest of which are input materials, and workers wages. As for the plight of the worker that gets screwed, who cares, the rich are incentivised by capitalism to have contempt for those without wealth, sociopathy to protect wealth and greed to make it grow. There is no profit in empathy and altruism.
There are better ways but we are never given such options:
th-cam.com/video/6DNofdU4tSE/w-d-xo.html
armyofall.wordpress.com/democracy/
"Unpaid overtime became a necessity to fulfill contracts."
Sounds like exactly the same thing that people are complaining about happening all over the Video games industry these days.
@@Reddotzebra Unpaid labour is never a necessity. If there is insufficient cash flow then the those at the top of a given organisation should be slashing their own incomes in order to ensure everyone who does work is paid for that work.
To not pay workers for their labors, is a choice, to have workers go along with that with little question out of a misguided sense of loyalty to a brand is economically suicidal for workers and Christmas for capitalists.
Wow, I don't know if you'll ever read this but thought I'd share anyway. I grew up with this toaster and assumed that everyone had such a toaster. At some point, I was at a friend's house and they were finishing breakfast and invited me to share. They had their toaster in the middle of the table so I grabbed some bread and put it in and waited. My friend's mom noticed right away and pushed the lever down. I am smart enough (or was) to realize why she did it but thought something like "what a weird type of toaster", not realizing that OUR toaster was the odd one.
Part II, we had this toaster for a VERY long time, I was born in 1951. At some point, it didn't work right (probably simply didn't brown properly and removing and reinserting the dial at a different place would have fixed it). Anyway, my mom found out it would cost a "lot" at the time, something like $15. So, she bought a brand new toaster. It lasted less than 2 years. But being the frugal folks we were, we still had the sunbeam and we got it out and THEN had it fixed and it worked properly until my mom literally polished the chrome off in places! Fortunately, they still made them and she got a brand new one!
RichE San Diego, CA
@Ahek it was a brave little toaster
did you jump when the toast popped out instead of rising up slowly? 😂 i feel like thatd scare me to death, especially if i didnt even expect it
Hey Rich, do you still have this toaster? If you do I'd be willing to buy it off ya!
How can you tell a story about the toaster without mentioning the other major difference between the toaster your friend had and the one you had? The fact that you had to change your pants if you were in the same room as the toaster when it pops!
Had this toaster too! did you ever get the issue where you would put the bread in but it wouldnt start, so you'd repeatedly jam it in until it actually lowers?
I don't know man, whacking the lever down and the iconic toaster pop are like part of the toasting experience.
Through the magic of watching WAY too many channels, I found a video about a toaster that uses AI to track bread toastiness, but now I'm watching a toaster from the 1960s. Why do I have an obsession with toasters?
No Redbull in the 40's, imagine how much coffee and cigarettes it took the engineers to come up with that.
red bull is gentrified coffee
Cocaine gum
There was fairly legal cocaine and heroin though so there is that...
don't forget cocaine that was probably totally legal.
@@Huels yeah, coke was made illegal in 1961, so in the 40s it was definitely still legal
I appreciate the fact that you went through the trouble of animating the patent picture to give a clear picture of how the mechanism works. This is top quality content; thank you for providing it.
I know right
I know wrong
I know left.
@@eatingsteakisfun I know north.
@@TheOtherCiphbruh he knows north
I've learned more in a week binge watching this channel than I've learned in my entirely adulthood up until this point. Thank you for making all this content. You make the banal very interesting and your viewers are all better off as a result.
That was the toaster I grew up with! We were the only ones I knew of who had one. But I took it for granted as a kid. I thought the more normal push-down toasters were cool because they blasted the toast up so fast and you got to push a lever (kids love to push and press stuff). Only later would I miss this one I grew up with, and only today do I realize what genius went into its design. Thanks for this bit of forgotten nostalgia from my childhood.
"Through the magic of buying two of them..." cracks me up every time!
"Oh god he has a third one!"
Ikr ?! 😆
And then he brings out a third one
This channel always cracks me up…his humor is very similar to The IT Crowd show and i love it :)
Fun fact, this exact toaster makes an appearance in the movie Mortal Engines. It is even called out by name and praised for how awesome it was.
I know that scene! Makes a lot more sense now.
Also a lot less.
I came here to post this. I wonder if they watched this video...
Isn't it also the toaster that the eponymous Brave Little Toaster movies is based on?
@@HolyKhaaaaan While the body is a dead ringer, I recall the Toaster's "Arms" being conventional push-down levers and doing the standard "Pop" when done. Odds are he was a more generic model, especially because it was a plot point that he wasn't fancy like this wonder of engineering.
The same toaster is used in the “Be Cool About Fire Safety” PSA with Gilbert Gottfried as “Seymore Smoke Detector.” They faked toast popping up out of it though. ;)
I’ve been searching for one since this video came out. Yesterday I found not 1, but 2 sitting on the shelf at my local thrift store. Just got both all cleaned up and working.
Another example of why I like your channel. That T-35 always intrigued me, we had one when I was very young until my mom sold it at a garage sale. When I was older my dad bought another T-35 after getting sick of junk toasters not toasting bread right. It’s been a lot of year and mom and dad are gone but I believe that toaster still exists. After seeing what they sell for on eBay now, I will be looking around my sister’s house for the one dad bought so long back. 😁
I had to pause it while I'm losing it over the, "oh God he has a 3rd one."
same
X2
I completely lost it. The timing is so perfect.
"This toaster is an amazing display of engineering and is better than anything we have today! It only has one flaw..." *proceeds to explain how it's a horrifying potential electrical hazard*
But all of those issues are trivial for modern production. To produce something today with those same flaws would more than likely be against modern safety codes. Making a plastic body for thermal insulation would be bad for the environment but trivial for the toaster company that doesn't care (and already makes their toasters with plastic bodies), adding the ground cord would be no inconvenience at all. Improving the safety to make sure that nothing can be live unless it is toasting would require minimal change to the design. A bagel mode would be the hardest thing to implement because of the current design's reliance on its "eye" for timing, but installing the absolute simplest of circuitry would allow the toaster to know what's going on and run a timer instead of relying on an eye. It would be just as easy as making regular toasters for today's manufacturers.
Well, yes toast performance and safety are two different things. It is also still amazing engineering, regardless of it's flaws. Saying it isn't would be like claiming cars are not great engineering because they occasionally run people over.
If a toaster with this design was made with todays standards, it would be the best toaster ever.
Best Toaster in the world, but it can kill you... well, classic trade off. Worth it imho.
@@cavaronev4869 It could "toast" you...
@@johnwang9914
Which can be easily fixed by solving the extremely few design flaws.🤷🏾♂
They could have improved on this design instead they abandoned it entirely in favor of the clunky design all toasters now have.
Yes I've the same model T-35 , gold emblem and gold leaf handles .
Best toaster ever , fast and so reliable and hopefully last another 50 yrs ! Had bought mine used 21 yrs ago for 19 bucks and paid 27 bucks to have it shipped . The best investment I ever ever made !!!
It's truly priceless
What a beauty !
I have a german toaster from the 30´s, fully manual, the model with doors on both sides to flip the slices manually. It was my grand parents and we used it untill 2020, when my "women in the house" untouched by this superb & perfectly working family relic bought us a new one more in line with their vision of modernity. And indeed, very modernly, some inner mechanism of it is already dysfuncional.
This might just be the second greatest thing since sliced bread
your joke genuinely made me groan lmao
What's the first thing since?
@@SeanFrisbey sliced bread
Dad joke for the win.
Now sliced bread can be utilized to its full potential!
Can't believe I just watched a video about an antique toaster.
I'm even more shocked at how much I enjoyed it.
Thanks dude.
I'm 49 and we had one of these when I was a kid. My first toast came from that. I think I was around 14 when it died, and it was in the house before I was. It lived a good, long life
One of my best friends had recently mentioned off-handedly wanting a nice, well-made, non-plastic toaster. He has a birthday coming up in May and I recalled this video I watched some time ago. Well, I found a reasonably priced Sunbeam Radiant Control Toaster on Ebay and yep - it will be his birthday present from me. Thank you for this video as it enabled me to provide a thoughtful birthday gift to one of my best friends.
This channel is just amazing. I clicked on this video thinking "wow, he's overreacting. It's a toaster they don't do much" then pulled out the perry the platypus equivalent of a toaster and now can guarantee I'll be raving to all my friends how cool old toasters were
@@LordBruuh You're not funny
I will now be using Perry the Platypus as a metaphor for everything.
@@LordBruuh yeah, people were awful back then, but you're awful now, sooo. Dont be a dick.
@@LordBruuh Nobody was going there. There are fewer of these people in real life than what you might find concentrated on the internet, in the circles that some algorithm has served up to you. Examine your circles and the source of the mindset that draws you to them.
"a toaster?"
puts hat on:
"SUNBEAM THE TOASTER?"
That toaster was discontinued about the same time Sunbeam fell victim to a huge accounting scandal.
Bankruptcy followed.
Yep thanks to Chainsaw Al Dunlap, Sunbeam was run into the ground, and had to be bought up by competitors.
@@marisam9803 Interestingly I was recently reading about how Sunbeam was screwed over by Al Dunlap in Jon Ronson's book The Psychopath Test (it's chapter 6 if you want to dig it out). It's a sad and sorry tale.
@@MTB_Martin wow... it would have been interresting to know more about that!
Great video! I don't think about toasters very much, but I watched this and the follow-ups, and showed it to my wife who got all excited because she remembered having one of these. Then I went to eBay and found one for parts or repair. It worked once the plug was replaced and we've had fun playing with it. I'm going to do the grounded power cord replacement and then it will be our primary toaster.
I've enjoyed your other videos as well, you're doing a great job - thanks! I'm a retired electronics engineer and still learn stuff from your channel.
This is a landmark video of yours for me, alongside your appreciation of the color brown. Can't express my appreciation enough for your deep dives, thank you!
You are my kind of writer. It's refreshing to see someone put that much thought into their English and the appropriate delivery of their lines. Now I want one of these toasters even though I can't eat wheat anymore. I would love to see a series made of going back in time and MAKING PEOPLE APPRECIATE THINGS!
wait, why you can't eat wheat?
He probably has Celiac disease, like me and my mother. I had the same thought, BTW, that I'd love to have one of these, but no way could a used toaster ever be safe for me... Lol.
The Mechanical Philosopher
That's a cool user name. No relation, I suppose, to The Philosophical Mechanic.
@@LNSLateNightSaturday Yeah, before gluten-free was a "fad diet," it was the result of a horrible disease that severely limited the variety of food available to the afflicted individual.
@@jimstanley_49 But it being a "fad diet" also brought much more attention too it and opened the door for soooooo many more gluten free options. You're still semi limited, but a lot of the stuff at least has a gluten free variation now
The demise of that toaster roughly corresponds to Albert J. Dunlap taking over as CEO. He completely screwed up the company, and engaged in accounting fraud. The remains of the company were sold off, so I wouldn't be shocked that that product was lost in the shuffle.
We had one of those, but without the gold logo, but I remember vividly the engraved writing for "one slice toasting".
To be perfectly honest, this, and similar business practices can be seen throughout corporate america, and has only gotten worse and worse over the last several decades. I wanna say it's the result of unfettered, unregulated capitalism that has turned the entire private sector back into the wild west where no rules existed, and companies could do whatever they wanted with no consequences. That is why I think capitalism has cannibalized itself. Also vulture capitalism with CEO's running companies into the ground in a bid to make as much money as possible, and getting out before the ship fully sinks. And companies where even though they are making record profits, they still lay off thousands of workers because they can't hit unrealistically high numbers to make investors happy. Sad state we are in.
@Krunchy The Clown I couldn't agree more with you Sir! If I may add one more thing: the pursuit of ever-increasing annual profits because merely maintaining status quo would never sit well with the shareholders. It's only a question of time before capitalism collapses under its own weight because these policies have depleted all resources. Sad state indeed.
I guess we kinda got lucky in Australia - the Aussie arm of Sunbeam went rogue in the 1970s and has sorta been doin' its own thing ever since.
I thought maybe it was the low carb craze back in the days that was the death knell to all things that was associated with bread.
“Oh god he has a third one” 🤣🤣🤣🤣
This video is almost as perfect as the design of the toaster. The "oh god he has a third one" is what earned you another subscriber😂
Keep up the great work!!
That lifting mechanism is an absolutely beautiful piece of engineering.
I love looking at old machines and devices to see mechanical solutions like this.
As soon as he showed the zoomed out view with the cover off, after mentioning the lever, and I saw the other end in the middle, I knew it had to do with thermal expansion of the nichrome element. I wasn't sure exactly HOW yet, but it was obvious it was going to be an ingenius implementation. Which it was.
And without a single resistor or capacitor or transistor.
Try Techmoan.
I.was at least expecting a motor somewhere, protected from the heat or made to be heat resistant.
But nope! Not only does it do away with a motor, the control system is included too. And it's free! Using the actual toasting heat as a control and a motor at the same time!
I'd love to know who invented that, and see the look on his face as he told people about it. It's pure genius!
@@rambleon3698 nope, our toaster aficionado is the techmoan of household appliances.
I hope he'll upload more content about those gadgets!
You know very well why they do not produce this type of toaster:
They sell exactly 1 per household and that's it - the next one will be bought in like 100 years.
ain't planned obsolescence a thing of beauty?
The sad thing is that it is probably true. I myself still use an old reliable toaster.
@@jacqueschappelle5857 That's capitalism, but also not helped by the nature of large scale industrial manufacturing.
Tweaking your factory to produce a slightly modified version of the same thing is easy.
Adjusting it to make an entirely different product is extremely expensive and time consuming.
Thus you either keep making the same thing for ages, spend a small fortune redesigning factories every few years, or just keep building new factories leaving the old ones to rot.
Also no product, no matter how well made lasts literally forever (especially when accidents and so on get involved), so you're still going to need a tiny trickle of continued production indefinitely otherwise at some point there will be no functioning examples of the device in question left.
The fact that Capitalism demands that your company undergo constant growth to not be considered a failure also doesn't help matters.
If you sold the same amount of a product as you did last year, you're in trouble, and that's sad.
Still, unless something about the nature of manufacturing and economies of scale changes dramatically, this isn't likely to go away.
A major problem, aside from the sheer cost of redesigning a factory for a new product, is that making one item is way more expensive per item than making 1 million.
Making 1 million items instead of one is not 1 million times as expensive, no, because of the way manufacturing scales, it's probably more like 10,000 times as expensive.
And that's a problem when you think about it, because it means you want the volume of production to be as high as possible.
The less of something that gets made, the more expensive it is to make each one...
But for the magic of buying 3 of them...
Nothing beats the simplicity of a camp fire toast. The wonderful taste and smell of these black carbonized burnt bread loafs. 😏😆
I still have the toaster my parents received as a gift for their wedding in 1956. Works great!
I grew up with this one and, WOW! Just found it packed away at our family cottage this weekend! ( we also had the really old manual flip style, made perfect toast every time as long as you watched it)
Came here via Tom Scott's Disconnected. Wasn't disappointed. Subbed.
Same 😆
@@thatsinteresting7041 Welcome, brother!
Go watch the video on Brown!
Same! Never knew how challenged my current toaster was. Such shame.
Same
please kickstart your new toaster company
I wonder if the Sunbeam patent is still held by them and if they would be willing to license - or if it's passed into Public Domain?
@@SteveNeubauer Term of patents in the USA is 17-20 years so it has expired long time ago.
@@SteveNeubauer patents in the us are usually for 14 or 20 years, so i'd assume this one is long past that date
Please kickstart this and give humanity smoooth operating radiating toaster redemption it needs! You can also put thermal cam in and have AI decide when the bread is done.
Make sure also to advertise that the heating element is 100% efficient!
@@MilanRegec Yeah, possible jokes aside the sensor they used (while clever) can sort of be disrupted by darker bread that'll light off like a lantern in the infrared. A modern temperature sensor that can deal with different-colored bread more gracefully would be good for a new version.
Brilliant and simple concept and I used to repair these toasters in the 1980s. Am now in hunting for one of these due to nostalgia.
I own this exact toaster from my grandparents! Now I'm inspired to get it out and see if it still works.
"Oh God! He has a *third* one!"
I laughed so hard. You deserve the world, man.
Yeah, I wasn't expecting that bit :-D
That line convinced me to sub
Finally, someone else who understands why I love my vintage Sunbeam toaster.
If you like this check out vintage sunbeam vertical grills. Its another awesome innovative kitchen appliance from sunbeam thats not made anymore and has a cult following.
My parents got one as a wedding gift, I did have to replace the power cord but beyond that it's still making toast every day as it has for over 67 years.
This design is filled with genius ideas. My favorite is using the bread's own heat radiation to operate the bimetallic strip. It blows my mind how obvious (in hindsight), simple, and perfect this is.