Hi Ray, I feel the same about the Triumph. In what year was yours built?

Lau

We don’t use typewriters to make words on a page. Computers can do that. We use typewriters for the experience of using them, that certain feel or touch, their healing powers if you will and there is no one machine that is this experience for each person. It’s a certain alignment, a fitting between you and that particularly machine. For me, I see these old metal forms as functional art, the visual part of the experience, so their design affects me, just looking at them sitting there and still. Then there’s putting your hands on them, and what that is like, and what happens to you when your finger tips touch the first keys. It’s a relationship of a special kind and only a person who can allow the machine to align with him in that special way can understand such a bond and experience. Since each machine has its own personality, it’s often near impossible to like one over the other much like saying you like blondes over brunettes when it is the woman who grabs your heart first and then you notice the color of her hair. So I think an appropriate answer to the question of a favorite machine to write with would have to be about the experience you are in the mood to have at that particularly moment. For jaw dropping precision and utter engineering greatness that invites you to type forever and a day, it’s a tie right down the middle between my Alpina circa 1963 and lime-yellow two-toned Torpedo 18b circa 1961. And my two Swissa Juniors circa 1961 and 1965 are of the same mechanical genius and wonder just more portable. For lightness of touch so light that you could blow on the keys and that would be enough to send the type slugs to the page as the heavy iron hulk literally rumbles and shakes the desk, hand’s down it’s my L.C. Smith No. 8 circa 1918.  For that old-school clacking and magical feel, there are my 3 Erika 5 machines with my personal favorite the one made in 1931 in original burgundy with gold trim and the pinch device to advance the paper to the next line instead of the carriage return that came later. I love these three equally, and likely my Erika M in burgundy from 1938 a wee bit more. And my typewriter guy is bringing back to life my newest addition, a Corona Four in channel blue circa 1928, and he says she will be my favorite machine to write with since that is his personal favorite out of his extensive collection, and he knows what moves me. So I have a feeling I will love yet another machine in my metal harem just as much as the others. When I take my Underwood Portable 3-bank for a spin, I quickly say she’s the only machine I would ever need. And as those words leave my lips, I remember those same words leaving my lips for every machine I have! And that is exactly my point: Only you and your machine know how it is between you. And it is that thing, whatever you can call it, that makes that machine your favorite machine to write with…at that particularly moment.

Olympia SM9 

I have restored and sold many typewriters, but my Torpedo 18 types so well ("fluid" is the word that comes to mind) that I could not get myself to sell it!

I agree. The TP1 (or TP2), script typeface or not, is a very nice portable to use. However, it's still a portable.

I'm surprised - just a little - that all of the nominations in this thread are for portable typewriters. I've yet to use a portable that compares to the performance of a '50-'60s standard that's in peak tune. When it comes to using a typewriter, which for me means sitting down and typing for hours on end, I would always opt for a standard. In many cases that would be an Olympia SG1.