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| The World of Typewriters » New, historic typewriter blog » 07-7-2017 11:30:27 |
- Will Davis
- Replies: 4
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I have a weekend of posts coming at On the Margin - a new post each day. Friday's is already posted. I hope you like them! And remember - we're only just getting started.
rebuilttypewriters.wordpress.com
| The World of Typewriters » New, historic typewriter blog » 26-6-2017 10:20:23 |
- Will Davis
- Replies: 4
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Friends,
I invite you to look at my new blog, "On the Margin - A Look Back at the Rebuilt Typewriter Business." This little-remembered but formerly major aspect of the industry now will get its due, via short but interesting posts on this blog. Much historical information and many rare photos will be seen as will, of course, typewriters! I've been collecting typewriters since 1999 and writing about them on the net and in magazines for almost that long and I can say honestly that I'm as excited about this new effort as any previous one. I hope you enjoy it.
| Standard Typewriters » Underwood 4 backspace lever? » 23-9-2016 10:57:00 |
- Will Davis
- Replies: 27
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The Daugherty, which was fully and completely visible and front striking beat the Underwood onto the market by a year or two. That's really the machine that started the whole thing; what Franz Xavier Wagner did was develop a truly "high grade" (in the terms of the day that means $100, standard) typewriter that was visible and front striking. The Daugherty isn't the same size or sturdiness as the high grade machines of the day. It's significant to remember that Wagner had once been inside the Remington / Densmore / Yost universe assisting with design and manufacture of some of these machines. He knew high grade typewriters.
In the 1923 Typewriter Topics history of typewriters (up to that point of course) the Underwood section begins with the statement that the brilliant achievement of the Underwood was not visible writing, but instead the accelerating type bar action. The unnamed expert in typewriters who gave that statement to the editors is not named, but my guess would attribute it to E.B. Hess of the Royal Typewriter Company who himself was somewhat obsessed with mechanical type bar actions for typewriters and knew as much as anyone anywhere about them. I bring this up to simply point out that even at that time at least one expert didn't attribute visible writing wholly to the Underwood.
Final note - even when the machine was being made by Wagner Typewriter Company, the brand name was Underwood and that's what appears on the original machines' decal on the paper table while the rear decal shows the Wagner Typewriter Company name. Underwood had an interest in the machine and then later bought the whole company out.
Uwe wrote:TypewriterKing wrote:Ironically, it was Underwood that came out with the first "Visible Writer" in 1895.
First "completely" visible perhaps as there were models that had partially visible type. And I'd argue that it was the Wagner Typewriter Manufacturing Company that came up with the design; Underwood w
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| Standard Typewriters » Underwood 4 backspace lever? » 22-9-2016 14:57:48 |
- Will Davis
- Replies: 27
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Before the machine stops looking like the No. 4 / No. 5 completely and becomes the No. 6, the margin release becomes a key in the keyboard over on the right side, top, if the manual I'm looking at has it right. Let us know if there's one there!
Uwe wrote:That's a good suggestion, but there isn't a hole there for one. I have seen machines that were missing the margin release button (and maybe more, I didn't examine them that closely), but this isn't one of those cases.
| Standard Typewriters » Underwood 4 backspace lever? » 21-9-2016 08:42:11 |
- Will Davis
- Replies: 27
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OR.... did the metal rust away there because of continued contact by human fingers, hitting the front plate there where the M-R button is, knowing that most folks' fingers are larger than the button? Hard to say with the rust damage there. We're going to need to find another one of these. Somewhere in boxes I have an Underwood repair manual, and I'll try to find that to see if there's a parts number reference. It covers No. 4 and No. 5 but it's fairly late, and may not have any spare parts listed for this brief variation.
ztyper wrote:Uwe wrote:What's weird about the cutout is that it's asymmetric; is the odd shaped upper portion cut that way to clear the margin release button?
Yes, it appears to be cut out like that to make room for the margin release, as it is rather close to it.
| Standard Typewriters » Underwood 4 backspace lever? » 20-9-2016 11:29:25 |
- Will Davis
- Replies: 27
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Well, a look at the OMEF serial number guide in my collection says that backspace and bichrome ribbon selector appeared on the No. 5 (and thus the No. 4 too) at "about 245,000." Another source, a Young Typewriter Co. rebuilt typewriter catalog in my collection, says that Underwoods above 247,000 have the "late improvements" such as backspace and ribbon selector.
I recall now having either read, or heard, that Underwood introduced the backspacer before it introduced the ribbon selector, and your machine bears this out. I'll keep looking for more information when I get the chance. Still not one image of an Underwood with this lever on it yet. I do believe it's a factory device.
| Standard Typewriters » Underwood 4 backspace lever? » 20-9-2016 10:01:12 |
- Will Davis
- Replies: 27
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That's about the time when Underwood introduced the backspace on their typewriters overall, so this seems likely to me to be a first attempt or field test. I will check some other materials from the factory, etc. and get back to you on this later. It's very interesting and as I said on the other thread where I first saw your photos, I've never seen one of these before and a look through some things here yesterday for about a half hour produced not one image or cut of an Underwood with such a lever. Well done - and so glad you've held on to it!
ztyper wrote:Just for those who were wondering, the serial number is: 236929 making it from 1909. Which makes it exactly a year older than my Underwood 5. Strange these two typewriters so close to each other would find their way into my care...
| Type Talk » Recent Acquisitions Thread » 19-9-2016 09:53:24 |
- Will Davis
- Replies: 1977
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Well, this is pretty interesting. I've never run across one of these before, and as you know they are not mentioned at all in either the rebuild catalog I put on line or in sources I'm aware of. I can see no illustration of the Underwood in any of my materials at the moment with this style of backspacer. Well done! What is the serial number?
Yours, Will Davisztyper wrote:If I had known that I was going to get one of these for free, I might have held off on my last purchase...
Yup, it's an Underwood #4. I came home from marching band practice today to find this sitting on the kitchen floor, and apparently, one of our friends picked it up from the side of the road and gave it to me. Second time this has happened to me and I'm quite pleased. The thing certainly looked like trash on the inside with the most dust I've ever seen in a typewriter. But I blew it out, oiled the right parts, and it's back to typing again (though not very smoothly). But there's still one question I have: why does this one have a backspace lever? On the Davis Typewriter Page there is a catalogue of the different variations of the 3's, 4's, and 5's. I never knew the #4 came with a backspace key like what's on the #5. But you an clearly see that this one has a lever right next to the margin release. I've tried searching online for a #4 with a lever, but to no avail. And what thickens the mystery, is that one is dated 1909 (one year less than my #5). If anyone could shed some light on this, it would be greatly appreciated. It's still a great typewriter, and I might just keep it around.
| Portable Typewriters » Remington Monarch » 11-9-2016 14:18:11 |
- Will Davis
- Replies: 20
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The machine you have is a version of the Quiet-Riter, perhaps the Office-Riter. Seeing the MONARCH name on a Remington machine is not too big a surprise, as this name was used on various Remington portables from the 1930's all the way through the 1970's --- well into the "plastic era."
| Early Typewriters » Victor #10 » 11-9-2016 14:15:24 |
- Will Davis
- Replies: 12
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As you may surmise from my recent blog post on typewriter pricing, a hard value for any old machine is difficult to arrive at and stick to; further, these Victor No. 10 machines come up so infrequently that there's no sort of real time trend for pricing. That said, no one seems to be looking for one, so there's not much to drive the prices up even if one shows up. Still I think it should be at least a $100 typewriter because of the fact that it's an off brand, as we sometimes call these. Fifteen dollars is a good buy!
-Will Davis
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