Yet another LC smith 8, this time with a 18 inch carriage.
And a Royal KMM teaching typewriter (blank keys). 

1940 Underwood Model S

Follow link for photo album or see below.

I was fortunate enough to acquire this machine for a modest price - for which windfall the seller rewarded me with a tie for most negligent typewriter packing ever! Only certain shipping damage was a cracked plastic spool - bent paper table and semi-detached paper guide are unconfirmed shipping kills while the cracked space bar was preexisting. In short it came through like the battle-hardened veteran that it is - carriage rail protruding through the carton though it was.

I previously nominated a grey crinkle relative as ugliest typewriter ever made, but the black crinkle, late art deco striping and bright metal makes this one quite handsome in my eyes! Has a U.S. Navy asset tag on back but is not a radio mill, something which makes it less valuable to the marketplace but more valuable to me, because I have no use for such an artifact.  Beyond custodianship I can at least delude myself that I might pull this artifact out at any time and put it to work. 

Cleaning up the carriage rails had it working smoothly and I am sure cleaning other moving parts will have it working brilliantly. Arrived with a 100% genuine WWII naval order! (It is well known that paper of the time remains brilliant white for 70 years so don't let the modern appearance fool you).

Oh yes - must repair the space bar.

Well, this is embarrassing - nobody seems to have acquired anything since last machine I posted and here I've gone and acquired another one.

And here she is...
1951 Remington Noiseless #10 Standard




Cleaning up old typewriters is like running the Bowery Mission - you take guys down on their luck, you clean them up a bit and give them a haircut and they look quite presentable. This machine is no Clark Gable of typewriters but it looks quite well groomed and businesslike.

There might be difference of opinion about this machine's looks and about the touch of so-called silent typewriters in general but there can be no mistaking that it is a precision writing instrument:

How can you not love that mechanism!

The entire machine looks like new and the platen is hard but shows no sign of being used - it might have been popped in (easy to do, removes with two levers) just before the machine was put into very long storage and forgotten. The touch is not bad. It lacks that thwack but it's mechanically satisfying enough and solid. The only significant issue is the escapement: after I adjusted a small coil spring and the carriage began moving again in response to the space bar and key strokes (it wasn't), my triumphal first line of type looked like it was done on an Olympia SG-1 with the double-space key depressed! In fact it was so uniform that I looked for such a control but did not find it.

After experimentation I found I could almost completely eliminate this by lightening my touch - it's kind of a teaching machine for not hammering the keys - but combined with the pulled punch action this is a little hard to take. And the impressions would be improved by just a little more velocity, though moving the touch control all the way to light helps. The eponymous feature of the machine remains useful even today because it would let you type late at night without the tell tale thwacking carrying through closed doors and out open windows and reveal your clandestine typing operation to the keyboarding police. Another typing deviant captured! The machine makes noise but it does not sound like typing.

Repartee wrote:

Well, this is embarrassing - nobody seems to have acquired anything since last machine I posted...

Or just haven't had the time to post their recent acquisitions. 

Over the past week I acquired an early Smith-Corona Classic 12 (a real gem - literally - because it has the jeweled escapement), and a '52 Gossen Tippa, both from from Valiant. That he would sell these two machines speaks to the quality of his collection! I'm convinced he'll soon realize the error of his ways and demand them back.

I also bought a '65 Olympia SG3N to continue my build-up of Olympia standards, a '50 Triumph Model 14 (the last classic Triumph standard before the much more modern Matura was launched), an Olivetti Lexicon 80E (the first electric standard that Olivetti made), and the one that I'm most infatuated with, a '52 Imperial Model 65. 

I've been swamped recently with other typewriter matters and unfortunately haven't had a moment yet to take a photo of any of them. Soon.
 

I haven't bought it yet, but have expressed interest in another L.C. Smith 8 w/10" platen.  It is a few years older than mine, has closed panels and white keys.  Someone bought it on ebay and now has to move and wants to sell it.  They had taken it to the local shop to have it checked out and the guy said that it was in fantastic shape when this person brought it in.