Just this morning I cranked up my Sunbeam CG-1 waffle iron for our Sunday brunch. Still works pretty good for an appliance that’s on the order of 60 years old.
I love websites like this—online museums which catalog relatively-mundane items. It reminds me that these "mundane" items actually have a lot of history, and I'm sure a lot of interesting stories from those who worked on them.
I was talking with Ron W4RON on ham radio and he mentioned that he collects old radios and told me about his site. I asked him if he had a Truetone radio and he said he had one from the 1930s.
I went on to explain that in the 1970s I saw a Truetone radio at a neighbor's garage sale, and the printing on the back panel said:
Equipped with
Truetone Stratoscope
Eliminates
Aerial and Ground
(The Stratoscope was a coil antenna on the inside of the cardboard back panel.)
I thought the Truetone Stratoscope name was pretty cool, and I adopted it as my hippie nickname and later my online handle. I used to try to get Truetone but someone always beat me to it, so I started using Stratoscope.
Ron said his Truetone radio didn't have a Stratoscope but he was familiar with it; it was something they added later.
Here's a Truetone Stratoscope from another antique radio site:
Back to Radio Heaven, Ron has a neat story of how he got started collecting radios and some wisdom he learned from his mom (edited for brevity):
I went with my mother to a local flea market and there sitting on the tailgate of a pickup just inside the gate was...an Atwater Kent model 20. I remember the dealer had it priced at $15, I only had $10 so I asked my mom for $5 so I could buy the radio. She said "I'm not going to give you $5 to buy that old piece of junk, if you want it try to haggle him down to $10". Well, he took the $10 and I was hooked, not only on old radio, but haggling with dealers over their price.
Here's an interesting video on why these old toasters are better than the modern ones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfxlSG6q5Y
Discussed in depth! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21164014
Just this morning I cranked up my Sunbeam CG-1 waffle iron for our Sunday brunch. Still works pretty good for an appliance that’s on the order of 60 years old.
This site makes me miss living in New York. They have everything there.
Also, one of the toasters on display is the same one that was given to me when I went to college.
https://toastercentral.com/images/2SimplexT211-4921DL-02.jpg
I love websites like this—online museums which catalog relatively-mundane items. It reminds me that these "mundane" items actually have a lot of history, and I'm sure a lot of interesting stories from those who worked on them.
Coincidentally, last night I learned about a similar website by a collector of antique radios, Radio Heaven:
http://radioheaven.homestead.com/
I was talking with Ron W4RON on ham radio and he mentioned that he collects old radios and told me about his site. I asked him if he had a Truetone radio and he said he had one from the 1930s.
I went on to explain that in the 1970s I saw a Truetone radio at a neighbor's garage sale, and the printing on the back panel said:
(The Stratoscope was a coil antenna on the inside of the cardboard back panel.)
I thought the Truetone Stratoscope name was pretty cool, and I adopted it as my hippie nickname and later my online handle. I used to try to get Truetone but someone always beat me to it, so I started using Stratoscope.
Ron said his Truetone radio didn't have a Stratoscope but he was familiar with it; it was something they added later.
Here's a Truetone Stratoscope from another antique radio site:
https://www.radiomuseum.org/images/radio/western_auto_supply...
https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/western_au_d2610.html
Back to Radio Heaven, Ron has a neat story of how he got started collecting radios and some wisdom he learned from his mom (edited for brevity):
I went with my mother to a local flea market and there sitting on the tailgate of a pickup just inside the gate was...an Atwater Kent model 20. I remember the dealer had it priced at $15, I only had $10 so I asked my mom for $5 so I could buy the radio. She said "I'm not going to give you $5 to buy that old piece of junk, if you want it try to haggle him down to $10". Well, he took the $10 and I was hooked, not only on old radio, but haggling with dealers over their price.
Recent toaster thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21164014