Fleetwing wrote:

Today I got (for $10) a 1954 Underwood De Luxe Quiet Tab -- in the two-tone brown color scheme. .

It is time for me to stop shopping on eBay and start looking for stoop sales (equivalent of yard sales in my part of Brooklyn). Eventually I might get 5 machines for what I am paying for 1.
 

Dunno why Royal had terrible serial numbers, but I suppose it's just something we have to live with. After all, it is just a number. I also should get the platen and rubber parts on my Royal 10 fixed, I just can't bring myself to spend that much money!

And Valiant, your typewriter looks a lot better than mine does! The chrome parts are all rusty and so are the insides. It just makes the machine very... rough-feeling when I type. But it should clean up nicely and be one of my favorites.

Appropriately enough for Veterans' Day, here in the United States, I post some photos of a battle scared veteran which was just discharged from the field hospital - no cosmetic surgery, but fit to return to active duty.



I did not take before photos of this Royalite, though from this view, it would not matter much. It's principal charm was a purchase price of $2 + $14 shipping. You pay your money, and you take your chances.

The good thing was, the mechanism basically worked, It typed. It's issues were (1) seemed to have been stored on its back in its carry bag with the bottom in damp for a long time (2) chassis not attached to body. The sub-results of (1) were (a) back of machine badly corroded (aluminium or maybe magnesium) (b) margin release jammed (c) carry bag revolting and bad musty odor. Last had clear solution - no more bag. First called for scraping and painting. Margin release I did not even notice at first, and when I did I had already removed the body to clean it up and repaint the back, and I tracked down the problem to part of the linkage at the back. In the standing water. Not corroded, just gummed up, mineral spirits fixed.

The original color would seem to be the ubiquitous "nauseous sea foam". Um... maybe I did not quite get that right, but greenish seas always make me think of sea sickness anyway, and I'm not sure why this shade seemed to have been so DARN popular with typewriters. Do not think I've seen the color option anywhere else - even under a less noisome name. So my local hardware store of course does not have this color, and I settled for "smoke gray". It will now be, until the resurrection of all typewriters - two tone. and lovely colors they are.

The back did not come out too badly...

...being a nice uniform gray, and you can see the beauty of this color combination on the side. On the rest of the machine I just sanded out the bad bits of paint and patched them in with a Q-Tip. Personally, I find the gray less noisome - the battleship may be rocking, but I would rather be aboard than in the cruel ocean.

I wanted to attribute the detachment of the chassis to the same cause - rot from water damage - but I am not sure. There was not a hint how the attachment should have been made, though when I opened the machine many bits of dry rotted rubber came out, which may have been a clue. The screws which should have made the connection were all the way home in the chassis, though, so it seems like a deliberate decision had been made at some time to punt and leave the chassis loose. When I jury rigged a way to reattach the body I was mighty proud of myself - until I found everything was jammed! Eventually, a ticklish job of shimming with washers inside and out corrected this, and the typewriter is triumphantly in one piece again.

The reason for the stack of different sized washers is that the holes were rather large - apparently for a rubber insert - and I had to find a way to support the screw head. More spacers inside. It was also necessary to add some feet to stop the machine's new name from being The Gouger.

Well, that was the end of the field repair. How does it type?

Not bad for $2! Soldier on, veteran. When a typewriter is returned to active duty, the picas shed a tear of joy in heaven.

Possibly because I eliminated so many rubber shims for metal-to-metal connections, the sound of typing is like a thousand ants beating their swords into plowshares. A typing tintinnabulation. I did add a piece of electrical tape (red, visible in second photo) behind the typebars. I feel there should have been a strip of rubber there. The tape at least eliminated some of the clattering.

Incidentally, I left the seller great feedback on what a great deal this was and how happy I was, and send him a friendly private note saying that I was happy, but if a tad MORE money had changed hands, I might have been unhappy that he accidentally forgot to take a photo from the aspect with the most damage - the corroded backside. An you know what? He never reciprocated feedback. Guess I should have made the comment in public. Sheesh!

retro wrote:

Uwe wrote:

retro wrote:

[First have a look at what others say about them. Some are well respected jounalists and collectors and I am just a typist who collects the odd machine out of curiousity. Here is a link to one who compares Erika to another well respected German typewriter manufacturer.

The link is to a blog that has all of 19 typewriters reviewed, so it appears that its author isn't drawing from a wealth of experience, and his review of the Erika is an exercise in hyperbole and almost completely void of objective analysis. I for one would love to know who the "well respected journalists and collectors" that you refer to are. Most real journalists would make poor judges of a typewriter, at least how a machine would stand in comparison to the myriad makes and models that comprised its competition. Most writers and journalists stuck with one model for many years and were more preoccupied with churning out copy than figuring out which model had keys that fluttered like the wings of angels. I know a number of serious and respected collectors (although he's too modest to admit it, I'd include Valiant in that group), and can't recall one having gushed about the Erika 10. However, for giggles I'll pull one out soon and compare it back to back with an SM3 and see if my opinion of the machine is still the same.
 

I always respect the views of others whether I agree with them or not and before I acquire a typewriter I usually try to find out what they are like. Yes, the writer of the blog did "wax lyrical" over the Erika and I see no harm in that. As to if he only owns 19 typewriters I wouldn't know but I value his opinion, expert or not just as I do the opinions of those in this forum.
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 I know nothing about Olympia typewriters except the SM9 I recently acquired and a 1930's one that I used during a 2 day 40's event earlier this year. I presume then that the SM3 is the holy grail of typewriters? ....  I always value my wife's opinion on all matters.
---- snip ----.  

tl;dr   The best opinions are based on facts, not other opinions.
Well, I always respect other people *as people,* and I think everyone should, but that does not lead me to value their opinions or views equally. Many opinions are underinformed, some are misinformed, and some are just plain goofy. Mark Twain said, "It ain't what folks don't know that's the problem---it's what they know that ain't so." But here I'm underinformed; it may have been Josh Billings or Artemus Ward. To add complication, those are all pen names.
A major detail that seems under-appreciated in these discussions is that comparisons of today's typewriters are affected as much by their conditions of life over the last 50 to 130 years as by their original designs. The unknown histories of this vs that typewriter regarding maintenance, different rates of hardening of rubber, kids pounding on them, storage conditions, and such makes certainty untrustworthy. Even among the same model, much less trustworthy across makes and models and eras. Condition and history make big differences in individual comparisons.
That said, there are observable traits---things like some models seeming disposed to have weak escapements, some having more efficient linkages, and so on. But this is where experience comes in---being able to evaluate whether the feel of a keystroke is due to design or condition, and how one design might compare with other designs that one has only read about, not experienced. Quite likely these days condition is a big factor. And this is why we have reservations about the pronouncements of someone with 15 typewriters acquired over, say, the last nine months.
HTH

Royal 10 #4



No serious issues. Some paint loss, slightly bent corner of paper rest, some residue, missing foot. Criminally inexpensive.

How can such a fine machine go wanting an owner for less than half a C note, delivered to your door!? I am hooked.