Vintage Electrical Appliance # 2 - "The Toaster"

[Flying10uk]

The next vintage electrical appliance that I have to show is a "old school" manual toaster which is untimed and only toasted the bead one side at a time. It is believed that this particular toaster and this style of toaster dates to the 1940's but we were still using it well into the mid 1970's as money was tight.

Although "manual" and untimed one normally had a "feel" for how long to leave the bread in the toaster before extracting it, turning it and replacing it to toast the other side. The downside to this toaster, when using it, was when the phone rang. This is because in the "dash" to answer the phone, of which there was only one in our house during the 1970's, situated in the hallway, one tended to leave the toaster switched on, with toast in it. After being completely sidetracked by the telephone conversation and completely forgetting the toaster, after about 5 minutes a strong burning smell would drift into the hallway. A dash back to the kitchen and one would be "greeted" by a toaster with flames leaping out of the top of it, about a foot into the air. What was unbelievable was that 2 slices of bread could produce so many flames.