Okay, I admit it, I have a problem...

I guess it's more of an addiction than a problem, or possibly an addiction that results in problems. I can't resist toasters. Particularly chrome ones. I can't pass up a chrome toaster at a garage sale. Most homes only need one, but I have several. I came home with another one Saturday. One almost exactly like another I already have.

C'mon, it was only a $1! How can I pass that up. Logic goes out the window for $1.

It's a Sunbeam model T-35 manufactured around 1958. It has pressure sensitive toast slots -- put bread in and it goes down automatically. According to some research I found online, "toasting was not based on a timer, but on a thermostat that measured heat reflected (or radiated) from the surface of the bread, hence the 'Radiant Control' Moniker." Toasters were so much more high tech back then. Why don't they make automatic plunging toasters anymore?

Like I said, it's very similar to my other Sunbeam, a model T-20B which features a design said to be inspired by the Trylon and Perisphere symbols of the 1939 World's Fair in New York.

I also had a Sunbeam T-1-C from the 1930's:



Sadly, I sold this one on eBay. Later, I found that the same toaster appears in the movie A Christmas Story. Of course, then I wanted it back.

I also had a Toastmaster Super Deluxe that was also a pressure-sensitive toaster, but had clockwork gears inside it and made a fantastic sound when it went up and down. Unfortunately, one of the elements burned out on it and I had to let it go. I've been searching for one ever since.

We keep one of the toasters in our camper, a plain jane chrome GE. It's actually my wife's favorite toaster. Says it makes the best toast. Which brings me back to this latest toaster. When I took it to the garage sale host to buy, she reminisced that she had bought it because it reminded her of her grandmother's toaster and went on to say it just made better toast than newer models. Her husband found that funny, but I understood.