I find old egg beater designs fascinating. I found this one at a yard sale this weekend. On this one, the gears are simply metal stampings. Cheap to manufacture, it still works perfectly today. It has a U.S. patent date of October 9, 1923. There were actually 2 patents assigned on that day: 1,470,169 and 1,470,170, both to Charles E. Kail of Binghamton, New York, and both assigned to the A&J Manufacturing Company of the same city.
As for A&J, see my previous post. Interestingly, on google patents you can find various 1930's patents for egg beaters are assigned either to the A&J Manufacturing Co. of Binghampton, NY or to the A&J Kitchen Tool Co. of Chicago, Illinois. Was this the same company? In any event, A&J Manufacturing was bought by Ekco in 1929. Ekco was founded by Edward Kaztinger, an Austrian ex-patriate in Chicago in 1888. It is now arguably the largest kitchen tool supplier in the U.S.
4 comments:
My Great Grand Father on my mother's side is Charles E Kail. It was nice to read you blog about just one of many things he created.
TY for commenting. It wasn't too long ago yet so long ago compared to technology today. I hope many of his creations can be preserved in a museum somewhere, we can never forget him.
I just picked up an identical A&J mixer as the one in your photos. I bought it for $5 at an antique store in Front Royal, Virginia. I was just curious about the age of our egg beaters. If the naming changed when A&J was purchased by Ekco, then these mixers of ours should/could be about 90-100 years old? I do wonder if Ekco continued to use the same machining and stamping of A&J after they purchased the company. I imagine the machining - yes.. the stamping.. NO?
The answer is yes, Ekco continued manufacturing the A&J egg beaters and stamped them “Ekco/A&J/USA”. There’s loads of hand crank egg beaters at eBay. If you browse them, you can get a good education. My favorite style , which I use all the time — they’re perfect for whipping up an omelette — is the A&J model from the 1920’s that’s got the side-mounted shark-tooth gear wheel with a wood top piece. Its two beaters have two blades each. Later models from Ekco, as well as competitor brands like Androck, Edmund, Blue Whirl and others, have four blades on each beater. As the years went on, manufacturers tried to “improve” the 1920’s shark tooth A&J’s, but all they accomplished was to make them bigger, heavier, and more prone to stripping and jamming up. I wish a manufacturer would recreate the original design, but this time using a single alloy of high grade stainless steel on all parts (no wood or synthetics) to eliminate the rust and corrosion problems that come from the use of different metals, and with minimal crevices within which germs can collect.
Post a Comment