It used to be the typewriter I would use almost exclusively in my important correspondence, high school and college work, and a few other things:  The IBM Executive electric typewriter.  These heavy hitters weighed anywhere from about 45 pounds to 52 pounds or more.  They would dominate a desk or a table, and especially if you had a long carriage, you needed at least four feet or so of swing room. 

For those of you who don't know, or aren't sure of what proportional spacing is, think of "true-type" on a computer.  Ten small letter i's will not even take up half the space as ten capital M's.  That's how it is set up on an Executive typewriter and other proportional spacers.  When finely tuned, and if the type bars aren't too messed up, you can have a print sample that would look as though it had been typeset.  I haven't seen too many of these machines with that perfect a specimen, but I have seen many that still look rather beautiful.  The oldest machine I've ever owned was a Model A of 1953.  The youngest was a Model D of 1976, which according to the NOMDA (National Office Machine Dealers Association) book I had, the last one was built in 1976.  If anyone has different information, please let me know.  I'd be curious to find out when they stopped building these machines. 

Typing with the IBM Executive is a little different.  You'll notice that when you use the backspace, it only goes just a teeny tiny little bit.  That's because it only goes one unit.  The letters themselves are measured in, for instance, the letter I at two units.  The letter M at four units.  Numbers are usually three units.  And then different letters are done at two, three, or four units, however big the letter itself is.  You'll backspace for the letter i two times, and the letter M four times.  They also have a little lever topside (or a button on the front if it's a Model D) that raises a little hairlike thing up next to a typed letter.  That gives a sort of reference point as to where to land, say, a corrected letter.  The unit size is also measured as to how many of them go to an inch.  A 32 pitch machine means 32 units per inch.  36, the same but at 36 units per inch.  Tab setting is a little different too, since the tab stops are pretty far apart.  There was a formula in one of the books I read once, but I found that my best bet was just to set one closest to where I originally wanted one.  I have done this for years.  Outside of these things, and probably some I forgot about, but will find out once I get my '62 to going again, typing with an IBM Executive is pretty much like typing with an ordinary electric typewriter. 

As for other proportional spacers out there, one I remember was the Remington Statesman.  There were very few of those made, and now I regret getting rid of the one I got in 1988.  I had an Olivetti Lexikon 92C, but I could never find the element it needed.  It would also type as a standard electric typewriter.  I looked inside it, and it looked like a repairman's nightmare in there, as did the Praxis typewriter I once tried to fix (Olivetti electric typewriters are STRANGE DUCKS to me.  One thing I do find fascinating about them is that if you accidentally punch two keys at ones, the machine locks up, and you have to backspace to get it unlocked--a kind of anti-jamming mechanism.  Anyway, Olivetti has also made a Manual proportional spacer I have heard).  Also, I have heard Olivetti-Underwood Raphaels were proportional spacers, but I have yet to peer into one.  IBM Composers are another breed altogether.  These machines are the Selectric version of proportional spacing typewriters.  You not only have three pitches of type you can choose from, but vertical spacing (with a sort of margin setup there yet), as well as other trimmings that make it a rather complex machine to use.  The backspace is also funny.  You just press it once, and it remembers the amount of space you need to back up to the last letter!  The one I have was made somewhere in the sixties.  This thing gives me fits, but I keep it around as a curiosity so I can show the rest of the world that such a typewriter did indeed exist.

Proportional spacer machines are typewriters in just about every sense of the word.  They make a page look more dramatically professional.  I have used them for a long long time.  But for some reason, I got away from them for a little while.  Like I said, time and tide wait for no man, and hopefully I can get a few free moments somewhere, and when I do, I can show you all what a fixed-up limousine of a typewriter one of these can really be.