Great stuff. As Herr Höhne already mentioned, the typer you're trying to identify is an Olympia SG1, and I would only add that it looks like a later production early '60s model. The SG1 is my absolute favorite typerwriter, so if you end up with one I'll be curious to read your impressions of its performance.

The Secretarial in that photo is in pristine condition and has the decimal tab stop feature. I've never come across one in the wild, but do have a later version of the same model, which is surprisingly nice to type with. Are you impressed with your Secretarial because of its looks, performance, or both?

Nice drawing by the way. I'd love to see more!

 

Uath wrote:

Hi thanks for the update on Bloch's typewriter!!! Do any of you recognize what year it might be? Psycho was published in 1959, but Bloch had been writing since the thirties with his first short novel, The Scarf, published in 1947. You get the impression that these writers bought a professional-quality typewriter and used them for years and years. As I said earlier, Lovecraft and Howard wrote every word they ever wrote on the same machine.

For every writer that used the same typewriter for decades, you could point to another who went through many machines, so I wouldn't assume in the case of Bloch that Psycho was typed using the SG1 you posted a picture of. In fact, I'd have a hard time believing it was because I think it was made in the early '60s. However, the only positive way to date the machine would be by its serial number. 

The SG1 was also used by an author I really like, William S. Burroughs, who happens to be a perfect example of my above point. Burroughs was known to have used a Hermes Rocket, an Antares Parva, a Facit portable (most likely a P1, possibly a P2), an Olympia SG1 and an Olivetti Studio 44. I suspect he kept his SG1 for a number of years based on the photos I've seen showing him with the typer an in which he's aged several years.

Burroughs with Joe Strummer and the glorious SG1
 

Uath wrote:

Thanks for liking my pen and ink, My website is ghastlydoor.com I've got hundreds of drawings as well as ghost photos (I'm an avid ghost hunter) 

Thanks for the link. I'll make sure to check out your website and other drawings.

I hope you don't mind, but inspired by the subject of this thread, your drawings, and the Olympia SG1, I took a couple of photos to show the "pulp horror" side of a SG1 that I was repairing today:

Escape from Olympia



Wheel of Fortune



Bridge the Gap

No, I think that IS the actual machine used for Psycho. I just learned that Olympus started production of the SG1 in 1953. The picture came from a Robert Bloch website.