Why a toaster from 1949 is still smarter than any sold today

GON

GON

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""My colleague Tom once introduced you to a modern toaster with two seemingly ingenious buttons: one to briefly lift your bread to check its progress, and another to toast it “a bit more.” I respectfully submit you shouldn’t need a button at all.

That’s because in 1948, Sunbeam engineer Ludvik J. Koci invented the perfect toaster, one where the simple act of placing a slice into one of its two slots would result in a delicious piece of toasted bread. No button, no lever, no other input required. Drop bread, get toast. ""

Sometimes keeping it simple is the best solution!

www.theverge.com

Why a toaster from 1949 is still smarter than any sold today

They really don’t make ‘em like they used to
www.theverge.com www.theverge.com
 
I'm perfectly fine with a "simple" toaster as well but you can't buy 'em in stores - no one makes them - anymore. Our current toaster works okay but it has a couple silly buttons that wore off after just weeks. One button is for "frozen" items, i.e. frozen waffles, and the other is for bagels (I believe it only toasts the inside/cut size, not the round, crust side. I don't know which button is which anymore, nor do I care. My only thought about those buttons is who tested them in the real world and didn't see the labels wear off so quickly ?
 
We have an Oster that's 20+ years old that has all the fancy buttons like Frozen/Bagel and a stop button for checking progress I guess plus an adjustment for how dark you want it. It works great but every few years I have to take a long thin screw driver and go in a pry the little metal things outward to get it to toast evenly.
 
Duffyjr said:
We have an Oster that's 20+ years old that has all the fancy buttons like Frozen/Bagel and a stop button for checking progress I guess plus an adjustment for how dark you want it. It works great but every few years I have to take a long thin screw driver and go in a pry the little metal things outward to get it to toast evenly.
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Reminds me of my introduction to electrocution at age 5. Watched mom retrieve stuck toast with a fork numerous times, except she unplugged it first. My attempt knocked me off the countertop unto the floor! Must be hereditary - years later, my younger brother took a teaspoon of Lysol (brown bottle) for his cough syrup! Bad mom, LOL.
 
….back in the 50's my grandfather used to butter the bread then put into the toaster...even those toasters couldn't take that fire that ensued!

I would like a toaster with a simple timer. Most don't get hot enough and just dry out the bread.
 
The Sunbeam Radiant Toaster was simply the best toaster ever made. It's quality is beyond reproach and the toast it produces is second to none.
I have had 2 Sunbeam Radiant Toasters. The first one came from my parents house. They received it as a wedding present in 1952. Many years later, when I was a teen, my mother decided that she wanted a 4 slice toaster and relegated it to storage. I absconded with it when I moved out. Several years later, after all of us kids moved out, my mother decided that she wanted it back. I used a cheap toaster for a couple of years and decided that I wanted my own Sunbeam, and even though it was very expensive (for a toaster), I bought one. Some 40 years later I still have it and it still works perfect.
 
safety issues are "typical" in that time. otherwise just genius.

i have anger about latest gadgets, because everywhere is some chip..
even kids these days are learnt to put arduino into basic stuff.

example- battery vacuum cleaners...u dont need any advanced chip in there...
as people found out, chip does not only control the charging, but also takes care of "planned obsolence" (n)
activates right after the warranty expires... (batteries and motor still functional) :mad:
 
A cheap toaster these days cost like $15-20, this 1949 toaster is probably going to cost $150 in today's money. How many would spend $150 for that toaster? I know I wouldn't because my $15 one is working just fine, and I can do better things with $135 elsewhere (like owning an air fryer or instant pot).
 
PandaBear said:
A cheap toaster these days cost like $15-20, this 1949 toaster is probably going to cost $150 in today's money. How many would spend $150 for that toaster? I know I wouldn't because my $15 one is working just fine, and I can do better things with $135 elsewhere (like owning an air fryer or instant pot).
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I strongly suspect that this is the reason why it isn't manufactured any longer.
Another reason for why it might have disappeared could have been litigation and high product liability insurance cost. Now days there are so many hungry and unscrupulous personal injury attorneys that it may have been sued out of production. The outside does get hot and little fingers can get burned. When I was little I knew better than to touch it, my parents taught me to know better. One of the very first words that I learned was HOT. I, in turn, taught my kids to know better.
 
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ZZman said:
Back in the day when they actually repaired things instead of throwing away.
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Back in the day they actually manufactured things that were repairable, and they were worth repairing because they were built to last. Now days it seems that almost everything manufactured is just disposable junk.

Another example is my mother's Electrolux vacuum that she also received as a wedding gift. When I moved out I absconded with it as well. I still have it, and it still works well.
images

Ever seen one of these? Built like a tank and built to last. 70 years old and you can still get parts for them.
 
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mightymousetech said:
That’s because people could not afford to buy a new one, so they had to fix them. If you bought a $500 toaster now, would you fix it or just replace it if it stopped working properly?
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I’ve repaired $9.99 toasters just because I could , usually one filament breaks, reroute reattach, repaired for a few years.

No different than spending $10,000 to replace a 2005 Toyota RAV4 transmission
 
ZZman said:
Back in the day when they actually repaired things instead of throwing away.
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Why would you spend $400 to repair something that cost $90?

Rmay635703 said:
I’ve repaired $9.99 toasters just because I could , usually one filament breaks, reroute reattach, repaired for a few years.

No different than spending $10,000 to replace a 2005 Toyota RAV4 transmission
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Most people would sell that 05 Rav4 with a bad transmission to 3rd world along with another crashed Rav4, and then fuse them together into a salvage recovery Rav4 for local market, instead of spending $120/hr labor to do it in the US.

So in a nutshell, high labor cost and low parts cost means either DIY (not popular with household stuff or wives wanting fashion), or build not to last but cheap things. We get what we vote for in our purchases.
 
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