Replies

Hoping you might come out of hibernation to join this thread. ;-D

This model was in introduced in 1947, built to last, signed and serial numbered, and used continuously for ten or twenty or fifty years by American families. Think of all those GIs, home from the war, marrying their sweethearts and starting families. It was very popular as a wedding gift, and at $23.50, it wasn't cheap.

Toasters were marketed not only for breakfast, but also for entertaining -- a toast party to watch CBS Playhouse on TV.

But, when the Toast-R-Oven hit the market, most of these "old fashioned" Toastmasters were stored away in the attic or basement, still in working order. (And greasy and full of crumbs, I might add.)

The original advertising features the Superflex toast timer which compensates for a wide range of voltage variations automatically; the bakelite "Easy-Lift" handles are large, smooth and curved to fit the finger tips, always cool to the touch; and, the Pop-open with hinged door on the bottom makes for easy crumb removal and cleaning.

The heavy steel case is plated in highly polished chromium. The fittings are bakelite. The control knob allows a range from light to dark.

This toaster has been disassembled, cleaned, repaired if necessary, reassembled and tested. It is ready to do just one thing.... make toast. It is in good condition with only minor cosmetic flaws -- a Toaster Central "best value".

Toastmaster Products Division
McGraw Electric Company, Elgin, Illinois.
$98

As it happens, I grew up with that model Toastmaster---at first, anyway, until she burned out (it was a wedding present to my parents in 1950, I believe) and my father bought my mother a GE Toast-R-Oven to replace it.

You can tell that my father was obviously a man of much taste until or unless it came to replacing a toaster. Me, I would have preferred the classic Sunbeam T-35 "Radiant Control" toaster . . . the cross-slit model into which you simply placed your bread and voila! it descended automatically and arose slowly, bringing up the most perfect toast, bar none.

Cases in point:

---They got an original GE swivel-top vacuum cleaner as a wedding present. The monster plotzed in 1962 . . . bingo! Dad replaces it with an Electrolux Model F. It probably lasted well enough beyond 1973, when my mother---about to remarry (she was widowed)---swapped it for the first (blue) of the Lux square-tank restylings, a machine that lasted until the day my stepfather died in 2003.

P.S. I did mean monster---in plain English, that 1950 swiveltop was a first class piece of crapola; of course, I'm biased . . . I fell in love with my grandmother's original Hoover Constellation, the swiveltop of 1952 . . . any kid who didn't love a vacuum cleaner that resembled the planet Saturn was missing something upstairs . . . and by the way, they're making the Connie again . . .

---They got a horrid GE "Triple-Whip" kitchen mixer . . . horrid performer, horrid racket, horrid pretentiousness (its three beaters never did half what a good Mixmaster pair would get you), you name it. Tolerated it until she burned out at last in 1962. Bingo! Replacement: Sunbeam Mixmaster Model 12C. The last of the classics. On which yours truly also happened to have learnt to cook . . . and she lasted until I learnt the hard way what my mother never thought of doing with her, namely lubing her regularly (two drops of 3-in-1 oil in the appropriate tiny motor holes would have done it), and the poor girl seized on me smack dab in the middle of a carrot cake. (I got 12C---or, the Mixerbird, as I called her as a kid, since when you twisted the speed dial to fourth speed the tail fins made the machines profile resemble the profile of the original Thunderbird---after my mother died in 1991, since my stepfather knew about as much about cooking and baking as I know about animal husbandry . . . )

(That'll be Model 12C on the right, showing obvious class over that putrid chrome-version Brady Bunch Mixmaster on the left . . . )