
Toaster Central: Antique and Vintage Toasters and Waffle Irons - CaliforniaKarl
https://toastercentral.com
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Maxion
Here's an interesting video on why these old toasters are better than the
modern ones:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfxlSG6q5Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfxlSG6q5Y)

~~~
dang
Discussed in depth!
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21164014](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21164014)

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Finnucane
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.

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reaperducer
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](https://toastercentral.com/images/2SimplexT211-4921DL-02.jpg)

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sidpatil
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.

~~~
Stratoscope
Coincidentally, last night I learned about a similar website by a collector of
antique radios, Radio Heaven:

[http://radioheaven.homestead.com/](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:

    
    
         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:

[https://www.radiomuseum.org/images/radio/western_auto_supply...](https://www.radiomuseum.org/images/radio/western_auto_supply/d2610_truetone_160_551837.jpg)

[https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/western_au_d2610.html](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._

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dang
Recent toaster thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21164014](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21164014)

