The Antique Toaster that's Better than Yours

There are at least 3 leverless toasters for sale on Amazon today, brand names Breville, Cuisinart, and KitchenAid. The reviews don't instill confidence in a long lifespan. The Sunbeam shines in this respect.

James Christensen

There are at least 3 leverless toasters on Amazon. But if you read the reviews, don't count on lifespan measured in decades.

James Christensen

You move it away from anything that could catch fire. The burns you get are no nastier than from a frying pan. I grew up with an early model of this toaster, nobody was harmed.

James Christensen

Talkie's the name, toasting's the game. Anybody like any toast?

Arthur Robillard

Nope. He writes exactly the same way he speaks, and the snark just comes across perfectly in the style. ^^ I also hear it as if he was reading it out loud, heh.

Benjamin Nolan

Dammit, Alec, now I want an antique toaster! >.

Benjamin Nolan

Alright dude. You do good work. Man, I've been watching your videos. You explain how VCR's work, your explanation of the diagonal head was perfect. You explain how TV's work, and that's no small feat. I mean, in some ways I think things in the modern computer age are easier to engineer (standing on the shoulders of giants and whatnot). But .... and I feel kinda awkward about this ... its your video on a damned toaster that pried open my wallet. Good work, sir. Keep it up.

Robert West

Is it weird that I can't read any of the things you type without hearing it in your voice? In my mind of course. I'm not hallucinating. I don't think I'm hallucinating. I'm probably not.

Don’t feel bad. Through the magic of buying two, I now have twice as many from eBay. 😋

Jonathan Austin

With a few air intakes on the bottom, you'd get plenty of airflow to cool the wire quickly.

Phoenix

Great, now I bought one on ebay, I never even wanted a toaster. I blame you.

You have now somehow managed to entertain me through two videos about toasters, well done. Agree with everyone else as well, audio sounded fine.

The first toaster I used as a kid had NO CONTROLS at all! It had a door on each side of the center nichrome heat panel... and you had to REMEMBER to UNPLUG IT ! This made for some very exciting breakfast times! ;-) (Also, I very much doubt it had any kind of grounding either...)

Will Latinette

I've got a Zoom H1, it's kinda complicated to get a good sound from it. Without the built in AGC the levels are pretty damn low and with the AGC if your subject shouts or gets loud it'll peak or clip.. I've been sticking with a Beringer 4-channel desk mixer that provides 48V phantom power to a $25 aliexpress microphone - it's not a model from Neewer, because I've got one of those and the quality is subpar. it's some other generic Chinese model. the important thing is not to use onboard audio for the computer - an external USB device or in my case, Audigy PCIe card - is more likely noise-free. also, can you do a brief series on phantom power and audio recording?

Biking With Panda

The history of tech is so cool. Toasters weren’t the only manufactured item from the 20th century that previously had intricately designed mechanisms that became simpler (and cheaper to make) over time. This was common in other manufactured goods as well. At one time I owned both a 1948 Ford and a 1961 Ford. The 48 had a complex arrangement of bolts and springs used to attach the gas tank, but the 61 used only 2 metal straps held on by two bolts. I also think there is a novelty factor in the Sunbeam toaster design that had more of an impact on consumers’ imaginations back in the 1940s than in later generations. Even though some form of electric toasters had been around since the early 1900s, there was still a large segment of the population that didn’t have these gadgets in the 1940s. In rural areas many people either didn’t have electricity in their homes or it had been only recently installed thanks to the Rural Electrification Administration under FDR. Also during the 1930s there was an economic depression followed by WWII which created pent-up demand for household gadgets among the population generally after the war. And as beautiful and wonderfully designed as the Sunbeam is, you’ve got to know that there is no way in hell any manufacturer would build these today. There’s no market for it--most people just don’t care about that. They just want a reasonable facsimile of toast to be produced in a reasonable amount of time while they’re rushing to make breakfast and get to work on time. Maybe somebody will build some sort of an updated, safer version of the Sunbeam, but it would be terribly expensive for what is a very niche product. This doesn’t mean I don’t have the same sense of awe and wonder that you show in this video and it is interesting to find out that some version of this toaster was still around in the late 1990s. People these days are still fascinated by gadgets—just by different items than they were in the past.

Mark Hesse

Great episode, I didn't notice any audio quality problems on my end. Cheers!

Alec Jahn

Excellent, funny and just darn interesting video! I'm 53 and grew up as a child with probably this toaster in the kitchen, along with Electrolux cannister vacs, Sunbeam coffee percolator pots, etc. Thanks for the video! Proving that we don't make them like we used to!

CJ Carpenter

Great video, seriously considering buying one now. Side note, I think by design, this toaster can't have a bagels mode. It needs the middle elements to raise and lower the bread and the outer elements are needed for the temperature control that makes these so cool.

Adam Zawisza

While I would like to see a toaster like this with modern safety standards, I think that one issue might not be so easily fixed. The outside might get so hot because it is needed as a heatsink for the Wire to cool and lift out the toast in a reasonable amount of time. The time needed for the toast to be lifted directly depends on the speed with wich the wire cools. It might mostly radiate the heat - its a heating wire after all - but a non-negligible amount might also be dumped through heating the mecahnism and the expterior

I'm glad you were able to polish out the audio issues you had. I wouldn't have ever noticed without reading it. I do love the videos on these toasters. They're so amazing, yet simple, and I agree that it's baffling nobody makes a version any more.

Kevin Kostka

Well I'm glad you think the audio is fine! It did take a lot of work manual work to get the levels more consistent. And yes, the black frames over "Let's talk about how silly it is that no one makes a toaster like this anymore" were intentional. I wanted it to be like an announcement card or something along those lines. Went with the simplest effect possible.

Technology Connections

I don't know. If I stick to the diet I've planned for myself (which I've been failing at thanks to the pop tarts and toaster strudels) I probably won't make toast a part of my day. But you can bet I'll have the best damn toaster around should I start up with toast again.

Technology Connections

As someone who's worked in AV, I didn't even notice any audio issues.

I really liked this deconstruction of how it works: the multiple roles of various bits is extremely clever engineering. Thanks for presenting it. Ewen PS: the audio seemed fine to me. Possibly it took more work than expected to get to “fine”, but the end result seems good to go. PPS: are the several frames of black around the “why no modern toasters like this” intentional? Feels like about half a second or so of black.

Ewen McNeill

A Zoom H1n

Technology Connections

Darn it, I've got a new toaster in the mail now.

Chris Satterfield (Compgeke)

In one of the recent videos, you've mentioned that you basically do not eat toast. With all the toast around, have you start eating toast regularly now?

raytsh

What's the new recorder?

Simon Mikkelsen

I nearly fell out of my chair at the "oh God, he has a third one" comment! That took me completely by surprise.

Matthew S Sechrist

This toaster is in MOST ways better than a new toaster, but it gets incredibly hot on the exterior, which could potentially start a fire if the right item were up against it, or cause a nasty burn. Changing out the plug to a polarized or even grounded one is not a dealbreaker, that's easy stuff if you are already into electrical repair.

Bill Basch