Manning Bowman Bonanza

Yes, it's another toaster and percolator post. What can I say?  These things almost seem to find me rather than the other way around.

A few weeks ago, I spotted a Manning Bowman percolator in all it's glorious Art Deco roundness.

It was the first day of the sale and priced a little (okay a lot) too high.  I held out for 50% off Sunday and was able to snatch it in the first few minutes of the sale.  Not that I was fighting anyone for it.

It's a Manning-Bowman model 391.  The serial number is 12-50 which at first I assumed to be a manufacture date of December 1950, however, reading the Wikipedia article on Manning-Bowman company, it claims the company became defunct in 1945 (more on this later).  Information I could find online just places these in the 1940's, despite the solid Art Deco design.  It's not an automatic percolator (it doesn't shut off when it's done perking, but rather will continue to perk until it runs dry and blows its fuse) which is also unusual for the 1940's since most percolators were automatics by then.

This percolator is slow to get perking, but makes a good cup of coffee in 10 to 15 minutes.  Here's a clip of it in action.

The week after finding the percolator, I was looking in the basement of an estate sale for a toaster I had barely made out in the estate sale listing photos.  I found it on a low shelf, pushed toward the back.  Pulling it out, I discovered it too was a Manning-Bowman.

This is a model (or catalog number) 115.  Again, the serial number is 8-49 which I assumed to be an August 1949 manufacture date, but...see above.  It too has Art Deco styling and a beautiful Bakelite plunger knob.

The toaster uses a clockwork mechanism for timing the toasting duration and makes a pleasant ticking sound while it toasts.  It's controlled by a standard Darker-Lighter knob which accelerates or decelerates the ticking.

Set smack in the middle, it delivers a nice, if slightly under-toasted to my liking, toast. I set it a little more toward "Darker" for future toast.

For English Muffins, I had to go full "Darker".

These two appliances paired together along with my also Art Deco styled Steak 'n Shake Mug and Plate (the mug was also a recent find and features the rarer, larger logo) and a little blackberry jelly courtesy of our local Farmer's Market made for a delightful breakfast (ignore the man in the reflection).

When I first started reading about the history of Manning-Bowman, of course Wikipedia was a top return. As I mentioned, it lists the company as going defunct in 1945.  However, according to this site's research, Manning-Bowman appliances were produced well into the 1960's.  It also attributes the design to Modernism, rather than Art Deco, which I can see, although other sites I read also refer to the design as Art Deco.

This site gives a little more history of the company including an interesting account of a Manning-Bowman toaster going down with the U.S. Navy submarine Squalus in 1940.  The toaster was recovered and refurbished to working condition.  It also states the company was bought out by the parent company of the Toastermaster toaster after the war, so it's possible the name was still used under the new company for some years after which could explain the date discrepancies.