Well, the Atomic website has a new home - . I retired a couple of months ago, and I made the reluctant decision to jettison the Atomic domain name. However, I have now reinstated the site as part of my personal website in recognition of the wonderful friendships I have formed through our shared interest in the world's best loved coffee machine. Unless my ISP complains, the new site should be around for the forseeable future.

As time allows, I will upgrade the site to conform to the new layout conventions, which will I hope make it clearer and easier to read. If you have any suggestions for new material you would like to see, please leave me a note.

OTTO Now Available in New Zealand

The Otto Espresso, easily the cutest salute to the genius of the Atomic, debuted at the Auckland food show and is now available at Atomic Roasters in Kingsland (Auckland) and Caffe L'Affare (Wellington). Retail is NZ$875. My friend Graeme has tried the coffee and says it is pretty good. I understand supplies are still limited, so if you want one it would pay to get in early.

More on Electrical Atomics

Frank Kletschkus sent in these photos of a recent Atomic acquisition. It looks too professionally made to be a backyard mod. The logo on the badge curls gracefully around the pressure gauge and the bar in the base of the coffee clamp is nicely engineered from a metal that expands and contracts at the same rate as the machine.

He notes: I have just bought an electric Atomic like the one in the [earlier] blog on German ebay. The Atomic is somehow bolted to the hot plate which makes a nuisance for cleaning, and renders the unit unusable for camping, which in my opinion is one of the great places to use an Atomic. Though a couple of years ago I saw also on German ebay the same type with the same hot plate as a seperate unit. The badge is very interesting. Though it reads Atomic, it is not in the familiar shape but in circular writing to wrap around the gauge which is centrally mounted. The gauge's needle just starts moving when coffee begins to pour, and reads just above 1 bar when it's time to froth the milk. I used the Krups stainless coffee basket and tamped lightly. Instead of the infamous brass steam wand this Atomic has a little stainless wand with small holes and a bakelite lever so the coffee flow can be shut off. One has to be careful though not to burn the fingers when doing this. The wand's material seems to have the same expansion rate as alloy, as it is doesn't get stuck after cooling. Also it gets hot and expands with the group holder, whereas the brass rod is inserted cold into the hot alloy. The wand and its holes look professionally done. So is it a prototype or some engineer's home conversion?


Anyone able to share any more information about it?

Enduring Design 2

I decided it was about time to incorporate all the ideas, suggestions and critiques into a new edition of the book. So keep an eye out on blurb.com - Enduring Design 2 has now been published, replacing the original book. Main changes are:
a. chapters on anatomy and variants have been combined to reduce duplication
b. new chapters on early manufacturing history and marketing arrangements based on conversations with those involved
c. some new reseller badges
d. more details on research resources

Overall, about 20% more text and 20% more photos, but a few less pages because the new edition is single-spaced instead of 1.5.

My thanks to all those who have contributed.

Green Bakelite Atomic on eBay

There is an Atomic (badged La Sorrentina, but genuine, if you know what I mean!) with green bakelite, just been listed on eBay. Currently in Japan. Bit worn around the badge, but otherwise looks OK.

UPDATE: That machine sold for AU$1225 (US$975). Is this good news?

Electric Atomic

Troy Davis supplied these pictures and would like to know if anyone has any information to share. It appears to be a standard late-model Atomic, badged Robbiati, mounted on an electric element. The quality of workmanship is high. There are several known electric Atomic variants, but this is one I haven't seen before.

New Bon Trading Atomics Available?

Just got a report that a new Atomic has just been purchased from Bon Trading in Sydney. How do we know it's new? Well, the underside of the base has a "Made in Italy" embossed stamp which distinguishes it from the "vintage" machines that don't have any stamp at all. Cost was A$495. I hope we'll get a pic of the stamp to post on the website sometime soon.

Nothing much else has changed, reportedly. The box is still plain and junky, the coffee sample is the same, the manual is no different. So in some respects tradition dies hard. We'll have to wait for history to tell us whether these new Bon Trading Atomics are regarded as an unbroken continuation of the vintage tradition or merely another modern version.

So the "Atomic wars" are hotting up... Now we have these "new" Bon Trading machines joining the ranks of pretenders to succeed Robbiati's vintage cutie, alongside the La Sorrentina reproductions, and shortly the Otto espresso.

Long live the Atomic!!

Earlier date for brass steam rod?

A seller on New Zealand's TradeMe auction site has an Atomic (no badge, but a Thos. Cara manual) with the brass steam rod included in the coffee clamp. I always thought this innovation was quite a late one - most likely 1980s - but the seller is adamant that she bought the Atomic in the 1970s. So I guess I'll be rewriting that little bit of my version of Atomic history!

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

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.

Atomic Patents

Paul Schilperoord reports the following patent numbers associated with the Atomic coffee maker, together with links to the original documents in some cases.
- IT 757219 (Italy)
- US 2549132 (USA)
- GB 633988 (UK)
- DE 838493 (Germany)
- FR 955982 (France)
- AT 167450B (Austria)
- BE 478076 (Belgium)
- NL 67725C (Holland)

Using the Atomic pressure gauge

Some of the Thos Cara Atomics were fitted with a pressure gauge and marketed as a "de luxe" model - probably the only time in history that "de luxe" denotes something less desirable than "standard"! If you have one of these machines, here are the instructions:

"For best results in frothing milk... wait until gauge reaches 3 kg. Do not overheat machine or plastic dial cover will melt. The plastic piece is replaceable (really?). If gauge indicator recedes to zero while machine is in operation, turn off the heat, this indicates that the water has been completely depleted."