- TypewriterGuy
- Typewriter Talk Vet
Offline 
- From: United States
- Registered: 24-4-2015
- Posts: 1,250
Re: Paper sizes and extra-wide carriages
Holy.......
How does someone ship one of those.....
Back from a long break.
Starting fresh with my favorite typer. A Royal Futura!
- tojeem
- Platen Punisher
Offline
- Registered: 08-7-2015
- Posts: 81
Re: Paper sizes and extra-wide carriages
TypewriterGuy wrote:
How does someone ship one of those.....
At great expense, it would seem... a beautiful (if a little rusty) Underwood Standard No. 3 with a 40-inch carriage has turned up on eBay.
I was tempted myself, until I saw the shipping was nearly US$200.
- Uwe
- Moderator
Offline
- From: Toronto, Canada
- Registered: 12-3-2013
- Posts: 4,408
Re: Paper sizes and extra-wide carriages
Most collectors have a preference for some typewriter sub-genre that they like to look for, and there's actually a collector in my area who wants wide carriage machines. I find them interesting to look at, but avoid them when buying because of the real estate they occupy. Standard models are bad enough, but these machines require treble the space investment, never mind how awkward they are to move and how much they weigh.
The pronoun I has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
- Markmotown
- Touch Typist
Offline
- From: Villanova, PA
- Registered: 16-12-2015
- Posts: 183
Re: Paper sizes and extra-wide carriages
This Remington Rand Model 17 in my office has a 42" wingspan. I tell people that I use it when I have really big ideas. Plus there's this one at a local antique store, but I don't think I'd pay even half that for it.
- Uwe
- Moderator
Offline
- From: Toronto, Canada
- Registered: 12-3-2013
- Posts: 4,408
Re: Paper sizes and extra-wide carriages
Yowza! And to think how much I grumble when I have to move my Remington 17 wide carriage around which isn't nearly as wide as yours. As for the Remington 50, I'd happily pay half the asking price just for the tabulator system; were I in your shoes I'd sell the 17 (if you can find a buyer) and upgrade to the 50... 
The pronoun I has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
- Gabby Johnson
- Platen Punisher
Offline
- Registered: 21-2-2015
- Posts: 77
Re: Paper sizes and extra-wide carriages
I have a pre-war Underwood 18-inch standard, which I only picked up from a yard sale because of its glass keys and great condition. Oh, and the price was $5 -- they just wanted it out of there.
It's heavy to move and throwing the carriage is a chore, but it's still a nice machine for occasional typing. You can even type two letters split-screen.
My theory is that they were built for ledgers in government records offices, since most are not large enough for blueprints of the era and newspaper use doesn't make much sense in the hot metal printing and Linotype era before camera-ready copy and offset printing became common in the 1960s.
- Repartee
- Key Master
Offline
- From: Brooklyn
- Registered: 12-10-2015
- Posts: 683
Re: Paper sizes and extra-wide carriages
I have a pre-war Underwood 18-inch standard, which I only picked up from a yard sale because of its glass keys and great condition. Oh, and the price was $5 -- they just wanted it out of there.
It's heavy to move and throwing the carriage is a chore, but it's still a nice machine for occasional typing. You can even type two letters split-screen.
Congratulations. It adopted you. I don't live in a yard sale environment but I've seen fantastic long carriage machines online for modest prices and no takers - likely for the same reasons I thought of: takes up a lot of space and more likely to be destroyed in shipping than other typewriters.
Regarding split screen letters, I read about an even more absurdist contraption: a single long carriage shared between two machines so you could send it back and forth and type in two completely different alphabets in the same letter!
"Damn the torpedoes! Four bells, Captain Drayton".
- M. Höhne
- Key Master
Offline
- From: Maine
- Registered: 14-3-2013
- Posts: 627
Re: Paper sizes and extra-wide carriages
.... snip....
My theory is that they were built for ledgers in government records offices,
....snip.....
And not just government offices but probably more frequently in business for ledger work.
- TypewriterKing
- Inactive Account
Offline
- From: DeepInTheHeartO', Texas
- Registered: 17-2-2016
- Posts: 1,011
Re: Paper sizes and extra-wide carriages
Look what just cropped up on eBay UK
Man, check out the flippers on the bottom of that thing. Looks like it could waddle!
Underwood--Speeds the World's Bidness
- TypewriterKing
- Inactive Account
Offline
- From: DeepInTheHeartO', Texas
- Registered: 17-2-2016
- Posts: 1,011
Re: Paper sizes and extra-wide carriages
This looks big eough to annotate tech drawings up to A1.
Any advances on this?!
I guess this would need to be bolted down so that it did not tip over.Man, if the drawband on that damn thing snapped off, you'd be SO pissed off!
Actually, and believe it or not, it's no more difficult to re-band a long carriage like this than it is for a standard carriage. To me, in fact, it's easier. The only things involved are the re-tensioning of the spring drum--which would have to take several more revolutions to tighten it back up to snuff, and giving the machine leeway when you're typing, because a long carriage equals a heavy carriage, which equals extra weight on the escapement wheel.
Underwood--Speeds the World's Bidness
