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."

A little bit of New Zealand Atomic history...

It seems that most of the Atomics brought into New Zealand arrived in the late 1980s. About 150 were brought in by R L Bowden Ltd, most of them in three shipments, sourced partly direct from Robbiati in Europe and partly from Bon Trading in Sydney. Spares were purchased as necessary. The machines were sold to Robert Harris coffee shops, Belaroma, and other boutique establishments over a three-year period. The retail price then was around $70. The folks from Robert Harris were still selling the machines as late as 1992 - I have an invoice from that era for an "Atomic body, clamp handle, basket and strainer", for a total of $92; no mention of a jug! Undoubtedly a few machines have also made their way to NZ with private owners, just as some have migrated back to Australia and the USA as interest in them has grown.