Sunday, November 16, 2008

Who can you believe?

A quick look through the published references to Atomics (and it has to be quick, because there are very few published references!) shows some very strange-looking Atomics, as well as some more conventional views. Ernest Bramah gets it pretty much right - he gets the dates right and here is his illustration...



Ian Bersten also produces a familiar image, but he attributes Robbiati's patent to 1956...


From here on, it gets weirder and weirder. Fumagalli sets the date at 1950, which is approximately right, but his illustration indicates some mix'n'match activities with the jug...


As does Bhaskaran...


The jugs in the latter two illustrations are certainly from the right period, but I'd bet money they were never designed by Robbiati.

For details of the books concerned, check out the Atomic Website References

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Aetna - a new Atomic Badge?

Rachel Greene just sent me this pic of an Atomic with one of the very few badges that does not mention the word "atomic" anywhere. (The others are La Sorrentina and Life-Ware.) The machine in question appears to be a 'B' type with a small, tall jug. Because there is no mention of the reseller's location and the patent statement is in Italian, I'd guess they were in Italy, possibly in the 1960s.