OMG Valiant I've just seen that Clipper. Amazing! I've also just spent half an afternoon just cleaning the slots on a Silent-Super - over, and over, and over, and over... I think it's finally at least clean enough to sell. A VERY pretty thing but definitely not mint!

My latest acquisition arrived last Friday the 13th, not a good omen for the superstitious perhaps. Not sure that I really wanted it but I find it difficult to resist a bargain although I was concerned nobody else seemed to be interested in it. It arrived some days earlier than expected and I was rather surprised it arrived at all. One pound bids on Ebay have a habit of not arriving as I know only too well from experience. It was packaged in nothing more than a plastic bag and as the courier from those careful people at My Hermes handed it to me I could see several tears in the plastic bag and felt the typewriter moving about in its case. With camera ready to take pictures of some second hand typewriter parts I opened the case and found it had been put in the case upside down. Surprisingly, it was still in one piece. The bad news was that the carriage only moved a short distance and the carriage lock was already unlocked. I turned the machine over to see if I could find out what was wrong but I hadn't got a clue what I should be looking for and then putting it down again I found that the carriage worked just fine. In fact everything works fine, it is a very clean machine and even the ribbon was in good condition. I now have three Erika typewriters which is getting a bit excessive. It is surprising though what you can find on Ebay mid week like a previous one in Vintage Clothing ending in the early hours "old tipp ritter, in good nick a real steal" opening and only bid was 99p, mine. It was too especially as it included postage! Not everybody wants a rather tired plastic Smith Corona. It has provided me with hours of fun and will shortly be a "freebie" in the private sales when it have done a photo shoot with it.

Very nice SM-7 Spazmelda! Certainly looks a lot better than the Smith-Corona Galaxie that I got a an estate sale.

Yes, this was an online estate sale.  I could get into those.  I went to my first 'for real' estate sale last week to look at a Corona 4.  It was a bust.  The Corona's carriage didn't move with the keys or space bar, but the draw band seemed okay.  Seemed like an escapement problem and I wasn't sure if I could fix it.  Plus they wanted $65 for it.  Meh.  For $25 I would have taken a gamble, but not for $65.  I got the Olympia for $25 though.  Not a steal, but not too bad considering it is in excellent condition.  The platen is probably the best I have except for the one machine I had the platen recovered on.

I don't have an SM3, but I do have an SM4.  I prefer the typing on the SM4. It is peppier.  I posted above that I paid $25 for the SM7.  I don't know if you saw that post, so I'll just repeat it.