Guth wrote:

M. Höhne wrote:

Guth, maybe, but where's your "local"? These things were never evenly distributed. If you want an Olivetti, be glad you live wherever you do; there are precious few Olivettis in northern New England, compared with Royal, Smith-Corona, and Olympia, and even Underwood and Remington.

I'm located in Portland, Oregon. That's an interesting observation as I've never contemplated the possibility that some brands would sell better in just certain parts of the country. That said, aside from the 21's that appear around here regularly, I don't see that many other Olivetti models for sale in this neck of the woods with the possible exception of the Studio 44. By comparison, I've almost never seen a Lettera 22 or 32 for sale locally. Do keep in mind that I've really only been paying close attention to the typewriter market around here for the last half year or so so my sample size is definitely on the small side.
.... snip ....

It's not just a matter of selling well---you need a dealer who carries the brand, to make it available in the area. And the dealer has to be a bit aggressive, too, compared to his competitors. Now, we don't know (yet) but it might easily be that the Portland Olivetti dealer liked 21s and pushed them and maybe no dealer in my area carried Olivetti at all. It's not enough to say that 21s were so popular without knowing what options the buyers had available. (I used to sell cameras and pushed a certain Ricoh point-n-shoot because the factory gave me a 10-buck spiff for every one I sold. I don't feel bad about this because it was as good a camera as anything else in its class, but my colleagues and I definitely biased the the numbers for this model.)

It always bothered me back when The Typewriter Database used to have a listing of "The Most Popular Typewriter Models" because I seemed to me that popularity wasn't the measure of which models showed up in the database---availability was. People weren't buying this or that model because they preferred it---they bought it because it was available. The listing should have been called The Most Common Typewriter Models.

Just offering a historical perspective on today's circumstances....

OMG y'all -- I scored an Olivetti-Underwood 21 last week and am here trying to figure out what to do with the super janky action.  Like push as hard as you want you still get a really faint impression, and the leftmost 2 or 3 rarely touch at all.

I am a gut beginner at mechanics, have gotten by with only deep cleaning and working and coaxing to get nearly all my vintage stuff working well. What a testament to the engineering of these machines, that just a little delayed maintenance and so many of them work as well as they did the year they were bought!

Anyway: YES I have the crossed E and X.  I am quite sure those are the letters; one pair was crossed, on the left side as I inspected it through the underside. I assumed it was a factory error -- and wondered if it was throwing off the tension and would be a factor I needed to address. Sounds like no -- and the "ED" jamming hypothesis makes sense to me.

So I still have the action problem to figure out, and am sure I can find help elsewhere on the forum, but welcome any insights you wiser ones care to share. I really want to get it humming again; the action on my Lettera 32 (Ivrea 1965) is LIKE BUTTER and I want more of that Olivetti love! Thanks all!
 

You can accomplish a very good, deep cleaning without removing the carriage.  Good air compressor, your favourite solvent, and some brushes, etc.

Taking a carriage off or removing a platen can just become a can-o-worms for the hobbyist.  And can easily lead to more problems and damage.

Carriage resistance can sometimes be due to a malformed silent return spring

If anyone is looking for an Olivetti Underwood 21 with cursive script, this nice one is on FB Marketplace just west of Portland OR.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/867697388833978/?ref=search&referral_code=null&referral_story_type=post&tracking=browse_serp%3Ac45f2a3f-d74d-41e3-a74e-d3ddfa6eb604

It is missing its ribbon cover, but I have a mint one as spare and you can have it from free with just the shipping cost...probably $ 25 or so.

(Not affiliated with the sale of the typewriter...)
.