I've not seen too many here, either FW. It's my most expensive purchase so far - £55 + a tenner for delivery.

Needs a bit of a clean, but there's nowt wrong with it apart from a tiny scratch or two & a little paint loss where I assume the cover hooks have rubbed under the ribbon cover. It even has the original factory swing ticket & test sheet.

Well, the Royal Junior arrived - safe, sound and needing nothing more than a dust off & case clean. It's a lovely, little thing. Turns out it's a 1937 model - J54 953. Really, really happy with this - particularly for £15 ($20)!

[img]1937 Royal Junior J54xxx by Frank Judge, on Flickr[/img]

Got home this evening to discover the Klein Conti & Regent pair which I bagged over the weekend had arrived, too.

Both are fully working and as good as they look in the pics posted on the 'possibles' thread, although they both (to varying degrees) could benefit from a little 'tightening up' - if such a thing is possible! That's a job for another day, though - I have a semi dead SM7 I want to practice on / vivisect before I even consider fettling these beauties myself.

The Conti is a 1936 machine, and exactly as you would expect, whilst the Regent (according to Robert Messenger's blog) is a straight copy of the Torpedo 14 & also formed the basis of the first four bank Imperial portable, predating the first Good Companion by a couple of years. Marked as 'Assembled in Great Britain from foreign parts', it bears two serials - one of which is clearly Torpedo in origin, with the other being - possibly - an Imperial serial. Seems I may have scored a rare, wee beastie there.

gnuyork wrote:

Frank you're on a roll...

Well, my recent profligacy shows I'm certainly on something Gnu...  

I'm really pleased with what I've managed to acquire thus far, but I think I might need to adopt (or try to) a more measured approach - at least until I have some time to devote to cleaning & general tinkering (which will be a week or two down the line, as it stands). 

The Olivetti surprised me (and is currently out & looking pretty, along with my '64 SM9) - so much so, that I'm eyeing an early fifties Scribe to keep it company. It's a good distance away, though, so I'm trying to engineer a 'work' based reason to be nearby. Hmm, so much for the measured approach...

Came home to find a 1949 (British) Oliver Portable had arrived. Lovely condition, but with an escapement problem - the carriage will not stay in any position other than 'full left', although the movement is otherwise free.

It doesn't owe me much (and is also a protected Ebay purchase described as 'fully working'), so I need to decide whether it's a keeper or returned as 'not as described'. I understand that, unless I'm lucky & the mechanism just needs a damn good clean, that the fix would entail a full - on carriage disassembly, so your opinions would be gratefully received!

[img]1949 Oliver Portable by Frank Judge, on Flickr[/img]