It was a T.E. Lawrence extravaganza for me today. Along with picking up a fully functional Royal 5, the same model Lawrence used to type his manuscript of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, I was also lucky enough to buy a first trade edition of the book. The machine was manufactured in 1912, the book was published in 1935.

Just got this in the mail today, and it arrived in one piece!


The picture is correct, is really is that ugly at the moment. But what matters is that I finally got a Torpedo which has been on my wish-list for nearly a year now. One down, three to go...

Oops, I did it again, I bought a Royal 10...



I can't help it. I like them. And this one had four intact glass windows and a nice set of keys, and it came from eBay for $60 + "free shipping". I was surprised to see it instead of receiving a note from the seller how he made a mistake on the shipping, and wanted more money (against the rules, of course, but most people don't care about no stinkin' rules).

I can't convey how unlikely it looked when I unpacked it that this was more "working" than "not working"! The platen was grey, hard, and covered with a network of fine cracks. Worse, it did not turn, but when I applied a little more force it freed itself from the grip of the dead feed rollers, whose residue you can see here (thankfully, he dead rollers themselves are not exposed to daylight). And of course, the ribbon was torn, mangled and misfed. That seems to be he last thing most people who are playing around with an old typewriter do : they completely misfeed the ribbon and mess with it until it tangles, rips and is typed through. Then they leave it.

OK. This is obviously a bridge too far, I thought. This machine needs serious help and will break my beginner's streak of buying machine that only want a kind word. But, applying my Tyro Super Powers I removed the ribbon, cut out the mangled part and put in back in correctly. Then I rolled enough paper through until at least the major mung seemed to stop depositing on it... and then... and then...



OMG, OMG, OMG... I can't believe it. It types! And rather well. This is am emotional moment, to think that under that dirt and neglect is still a perfectly functional machine.

Aside from the badly aged rubber, the backspace does not work, and of course a number of keys stick or do not fall back all the way. But not that badly. And it is left with a grand total of one tab stop on the tab stop bar.

So what will I do with it? I guess I will put it on a shelf and cover it for now. I can only after all type on one machine at a time. But at least another old machine is saved from the evil key choppers. And since it has a pretty nice looking set of... well... chops... it was at risk. Ironically, the seller could have sold the keys for significantly more money and less shipping, and a lot more would have been left in is pocket.Thanks be that he did not realize this.

On "Quick post" there is only Submit - not even a Preview. Let the errors begin.

ztyper wrote:

Just got this in the mail today, and it arrived in one piece!
The picture is correct, is really is that ugly at the moment. But what matters is that I finally got a Torpedo which has been on my wish-list for nearly a year now. One down, three to go...

Thought this would be an appropriate time to show the BlueBird I picked up this past Summer. I think it is the same machine as yours ztyper, just re-branded. It's a very 'snappy' typer and very nice to use... hope you are happy with your new machine.
 

Today I got (for $10) a 1954 Underwood De Luxe Quiet Tab -- in the two-tone brown color scheme. The seller had said that the chrome cursive Underwood logo was broken, and indeed it is -- not sure how I will bend it back into shape and reattach the ascender on the d at the righthand side (where it's attached to the ribbon cover), but I'll deal with that later. Any suggestions on how to work this and what might work well to put pot metal back together would be most welcome. When I opened the case, the machine was loose inside, and upside down; I wonder if that's how the badge got damaged.

Other than that, it's in pretty nice cosmetic and operating condition. All the keys work well; platen isn't too hard.  The typing action is very pleasant.  Unfortunately, the capitals print a fair amount higher than the lower case letters, so I will need to bring everything into alignment. I came across a thread on this forum where Uwe pointed out where the adjusting screw and locknut are located. Unfortunately, I can't find a way to reach them, since typebar linkages block access to the locknut. If anyone has dealt with this before, I would love to hear how they got to it.