Toronto, Canada: the only place where you can find both a Royal, and a Groma under the same roof. 

One of these days, I must go up there with a box truck and just take home a whole haul back down with me...

My first purchase of the Spring 2016 season -- a 1947 Royal KMM from a local estate sale. I got it for $40 and it is absolutely the most pristine typer I have ever bought used! Now I've got two KMM's that work, a '46 and a '47. And I have a rusted '48 in a box in the garage for parts. I guess I'm becoming a KMM guru! But they are great, dependable typers. Makes me feel like an old time news reporter when I am pounding out the copy on them.

Picked up - finally - a 1974 Olympia SGE 50/51 yesterday. I had been on the lookout for a SGE for a long time to complement the other SG models that I have, but for some reason they never seem to come up for sale. Of course the seller assured me that it works perfectly fine (I was in a hurry and didn't have time to test it), and of course I wasn't surprised when I tested it today that most of the keys don't work. I'm fairly certain I know what the problem is, but I'll have to poke around inside of it first to be sure.

Equally unsurprising, the paper rest is missing. I really need to start making my own replacement ones at this point.

For anyone who moans about the weight of their SG1 or SG3, consider yourself lucky that it's not the electric version you have to carry. The SGE 50/51 depresses the scale to the 55.3 lb (25.1 kg) mark, which is the equivalent of carrying a SG3 with a SM9 stacked on top of it.

 

Gabby Johnson wrote:

bI figure it's a 1940s Standard model but the "Champion" on the space bar has me confused.

To my knowledge it was the 1937 model was the only Underwood standard to be known as the Champion; however, the Champion name does appear on the space bar of a few other Underwood models. And to muddle things up even more, there was a portable model that was also called Champion, and other portables from that era featured what was called the Champion Keyboard.

I believe the overuse of the Champion name stems from Underwood wining far too many speed typing championships. By the time the '37 Champion standard was announced, Underwood had won 26 World Championships out of 27 attempts, and it's obvious that Underwood's advertising department milked those victories for every last drop.  

For a while I used to think that the Champion space bars on other models were replacements from earlier stock (for example, there's one fitted to my Underwood Master), but there are just far too many of them around. A more plausible explanation to me is that Underwood etched Champion on its space bars to remind owners and potential buyers of the company's championship lineage. Admittedly it's a subtle reminder as the engraved name is normally found on the backside of the space bar and most only notice it when they're cleaning the typewriter's keys.   

What's the serial number on your machine? It's definitely not an Underwood Champion, but rather a mid-'40s model that is referred to by some as the Underwood S. 

The 'war theory' doesn't work. My Master has a Champion space bar, and it was manufactured a good three years before Pearl Harbour. And I've seen them on other pre-war models.