Meet Model 9†, which premiered in August 1948.  It is almost indistinguishable from Model 7 - almost. First, after some early production with the old plate-and-shield style, as mentioned previously, Model 9 in 1949 introduced the plain red-script and black trademark logo you see here. Second, the juicer attachment dispensed with the long-familiar spout-mounted strainer in favour of an inner-bowl mount strainer. Third, Model 9 introduced a slightly altered governor which, in turn, made the motor a shade more powerful and, conversely, a shade more quiet than the machine mostly was already. Finally, Model 9 did away with the option of ivory colour with Jadeite green glassware, thus bidding farewell to one of the Mixmaster's most distinctive appearance options. It also did a little re-arranging on the Mix-Finder Dial: where Model 7's fourth speed called for juicing, fifth for whipping potatoes, and sixth for whipping cream, Model 9's fourth called for whipping potatoes, fifth for cream, and sixth for juicing. (Mixmaster buffs confronted with one of the two sporting the old plate-and-shield decal can look at the speed dial and thus know which model they're dealing with.)

Model 9 also introduced a vinyl bowl-speed-control button at the bottom of one beater, to be mounted to the starboard-side beater spindle for bowl sidewall alignment. It has been a Mixmaster feature to this day - not to mention a wake-up call of sorts to other companies, who likewise introduced the who likewise introduced the feature over the years. (In fact, Model 7 users who might need to replace beaters were just as likely to seek out the vinyl-buttoned Model 9 beaters, which could operate in Model 7 without difficulty or compromising the machine's operating integrity. And, today, those seeking restored Model 7s are just as apt to opt for the Model 9 beaters.) A user still needed to shift the turntable between two mounting holes in the platform, though, to line the beaters up to the proper size bowl sidewall.
 
With Model 9, the Mixmaster remained the least noisy or ponderous and the most versatile appliance of its kind. Despite making only a two-year production run, Model 9 did more than its share to keep the reputation alive and brought the Mixmaster's most familiar-looking series to a distinguished finale upon her September 1950 retirement.

No American food mixer offered such a variety or volume of accessories. Pre-1950, the classic Mixmaster offered seventeen attachments (chronicler's prerogative to count the sausage stuffer affixed to the meat grinder); eighteen, if you counted a larger grapefruit reamer you could use with the juicer attachment. If you were attuned truly to the  performance of the motor and  attachment drivers, you could expand their inbred versatility. Feed a little less from the motor and turn the slicer/shredder into a deli slicer, assuming you bought such meats by the roll to save in the long run.

Left, the pea sheller, in an earlier version configured to drive off the power transfer unit, aboard Model 5. This version actually premiered with Model 1 Automatic; the version with the self-contained power driver, running right off the beater spindle, actually did premiere with Model 5.  The user set a bowl under each slot you see, feeding fresh pea pods right into it. The sheller would split the pods open by kneading them between two firm rubber wheels, drop the peas into the bowl right beneath the slot, and drop the hulls out of the other side of the sheller. It also didn't necessarily matter what size the pods. The later, spindle-driven pea sheller would endure through the end of Model 9's run.

Right, the butter churn*, to which the Mixmaster head (Model 3, in this case) was also attachable. (Talk about an easy rider!)  Below, left, Model 1 Automatic rides the ice cream freezer motor.

The freezer motor was first attachable to any old-style ice cream freezer up to and including three quarts capacity, good for pure ice cream and other frozen dairy treats, and the Mixmaster motor attached atop the freezer motor. (However, there is a series of recipes for making ice cream without such an attachment-- but with the standard Mixmaster rig--to be found in the Model 9 edition of How To Get The Most Out of Your Sunbeam Mixmaster. )  Needless to say, if you had the Mixmaster ice cream freezer device, you were far less likely to draw arthritis when whipping up a batch! (In the 1970s-1980s, Sunbeam--at the time merged with Oster, they of Osterizer blender and various grooming appliances fame--actually produced a single ice cream making appliance, but it lacked both the capacity and the mad fun appeal of the vintage Mixmaster attachment. )
 
 
 

This ain't no ordinary  hill of beans! Not by a long shot. Meet the bean slicer, which premiered with Model 7 and had probably the shortest life of any of the classically whacky Mixmaster attachments. This, too, had its own built-in power driver. And this may be one of the most impossible to find among the whacky attachments, next to the ice cream freezer motor and, possibly, the pea sheller.

Left, the coffee grinder rides Model M4H. As you see, this attachment operated by way of the same power transfer unit as the meat grinder, knife sharpener, can opener, and others which didn't feature their own power drivers. (Recall, if you will, our earlier note that coffee was not quite all you could get out of this attachment - you could also use the coffee grinder to grind and crush nuts, and even grind out your own breakfast cereal if you had the proper raw grains. Eat your heart out, Cap'n Crunch!)  If you are a classic Mixmaster buff and wish to enhance an old one you have just acquired (or kept in the family for several generations, as many do), you will have a worthy time of it locating some of these attachments - they are becoming more rare, and way more valuable, as the years go passing by.** And that is because, by the time Model 9's production finished, changes were a-bornin', and not necessarily happy ones.
 
By 1950, it was time to say goodbye to: the ice cream freezer, pea sheller, bean slicer, coffee grinder, knife sharpener (seen right, aboard a repainted Model 7) ‡‡, fruit and vegetable peeler, can opener, colander, polishing wheel, sausage stuffer, grapefruit reamer, and mayonnaise oil dropper. The juicer would remain. So would the meat grinder, slicer/shredder, drink mixer, and butter churn. A blender attachment was developed and marketed, with its own power driver, toward Model 9's finale. Those who found remaining stock of older attachments could still use them if they drove off the power unit. The Mixmaster was so much a part of Americana, the company could afford to gamble a new generation of buyers and users would preserve the machine's position. But whatever the improvements of the forthcoming models, many Mixmaster buffs believe something magic was lost forever, when the great bulk of the classic attachments were taken out of production.††
 

‡ - Model M4J with slicer/shredder attachment, photograph courtesy of Denise St. Pierre; Model 7B-1 with colander attachment, photograph courtesy of Dan (Decodan) McQuade.

* - Photographs of Model 5 with pea sheller, Model 1 Automatic with ice cream freezer, and Model 3 with butter churn, courtesy of Dan (Decodan) McQuade. You may often see Mixmaster butter churn glasses turning up with hand-cranked paddles (usually made by the Dazey Corporation, from what your chronicler has seen of them) in various second-hand shops and other memorabilia auctions and sales. This seems to have been a peculiar but pronounced mini-trend at one or another time; indeed, some who trade Mixmasters and their accessories online, at sites such as eBay, sometimes make a point - if they're offering a Mixmaster butter churn attachment - of saying "Not Dazey - Sunbeam", or a variable thereupon.Chicago Flexible Shaft did make a small variety of hand-cranked kitchen gadgets in the pre-Mixmaster years and perhaps shortly beyond, including a slicer-shredder configured almost precisely like the Mixmaster attachment. But whether such a butter churn was among them is difficult to confirm. Model 7 with bean slicer, illustration from How To Get The Most Out of Your Sunbeam Mixmaster.

** - In the 1970s, as part of its MM-style Mixmaster - which some classic Mixmaster buffs refer to, derisively, as Plasticmasters - Sunbeam actually went to the attachment configuration which had been a Dormeyer hallmark: conveyor bit mounted in the front of the motor, covered by a large round logo cap. The grinder itself was almost all plastic, too, except for the cutting knives and wheels. There was also a small slicer/shredder attachment, configured to operate atop the top-mounted spindle long familiar for driving the juicer attachment, and with far short of the capacity of the classic attachment. Model M4H with coffee grinder, photograph courtesy of Dan (Decodan) McQuade.

‡‡ - Photograph of Model 7 with knife sharpener attachment courtesy of Dan McQuade (DecoDan). The original version of the knife sharpener attachment was operated with the separate power transfer unit.

†† - Fellow Sunbeam enthusiasts may care to note that, when your chronicler visited the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry in 1985, there in a glass case was mounted a Model M4C Mixmaster, with power transfer unit and coffee grinder attachment affixed thereto. Very much as you saw above with Model M4H. That combination may well be there even now.

Gather around the radio again! Let's listen to some of  what Mixmaster families heard on the air during the postwar years...

Quiet, Please...: That isn't just our request...it was the preparatory request to what may have been the last of the classic radio mystery series. Created and directed by the genius behind the earlier Lights Out, Wyllis Cooper, Quiet Please starred Ernest Chappell, narrating the particularly horrific events that happened to his show character, with those events ascending into a signature grotesque disaster. Beginning on Mutual in 1947, it moved to ABC (the former NBC Blue Network) in 1948 and stayed on the air until 1949. Memorable trademark: the slowed-down cadence of its theme music, an extract from Franck's "Symphony in D Minor," with a piano softly punching out the melody above a hovering organ.

Ha-cha-chaaaa!:You guessed it: Jimmy Durante, hosting NBC Radio's Camel Comedy Caravan, with a sidekick who would later become a CBS comic and game show mainstay on television: Garry Moore.
 
"...and I'm glad that I have the chance to thank everyone": The voice was reduced to a hollow rasp, but the gratitude was amplified. Babe Ruth says farewell to a rapt Yankee Stadium audience, 1948..