I have a mint-condition one in transformer green. It's a great typer. Somewhere below my HH, Heavier keystroke than an SC Silent, but I prefer the pica typeface on the Q-R. Hard to compare to an SM3/4 because the actions are so different.

skywatcher wrote:

Portables were more for home use, typing letters to friends and family, so the professional look wasn't as important. Also, if one was writing to parents or grandparents, pica is easier to read for older folk. What are your thoughts on this idea?

Interesting analysis. It becomes complicated when Olympia identified certain typefaces as being better at carbon copies, which I presume would be an office function, mostly. This includes a fairly large pica type face (see image). I would think standardizing on the kinds of forms that were typical for a particular business makes sense. I wonder if companies standardized this way across all their machines, i.e., not mixing typefaces.





 

The typefaces are not Congress....

If I remember, you can remove the right-side platen knob, which makes it easier to pivot out.