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Good weekend for both of us. Great looking standard!
ztyper wrote:
$21 for an SM-3? Not bad at all! Though just today I snagged this one for just $20...
An Underwood SX made in January, 1954. I picked it up today from someone's house in my town because I didn't have any money on me when I saw it at a local church sale. It's in extremely good condition considering it hasn't been used since the 1970's. All I did was get some of the grime that I could get to out and lightly oil the escapement. This is the first standard that I've found that has everything working. I mean everything. It even has my favorite size typeface: pica! Though the real deal of the year, is that I got some actual typewriter tools from the same guy. Never thought I'd actually own any, and I still don't know what they're all for. But I'll post more about that later.
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I keep falling behind with posting recent buys, but during this past week I added a 1943 Erika 5 Tabulator and a 1967 Olympia SG3 to the collection. The SG3 has a transition colour scheme that I think was short lived, but still looks quite good with its charcoal keys and deep green accents.
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I love the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles green accents on the shift keys and the platen knobs.
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VERY pretty!
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Yes indeed -- I've never seen that variation before! (And you seem to always find the SGs with the paper rests too....) I really like the looks of this one -- the green is rather whimsical.
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I should also report that I got a 1950 Royal Arrow, gray color. I saw it at a tag sale, with scuffed "tweed" case and a plastic cover also, a week ago Saturday. It was too rich for my blood at $60 but I sent them a note a couple of days later and we agreed on $25 for it, which is perhaps a tad high. I picked it up today and it's a nice little machine -- elite font size, which is a nice bonus in my book. It needs cleaning and a new ribbon, but it's all working as is. The typing action is very pleasant. The only thing is that the paper guide is too loose -- I would like to figure out a way to form it somehow to keep it from sliding.
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Uwe, I am green with jealousy about your fine SG-3! What hidden fonts of writing machines slake your thirst?
And elite type, too. Anything notable about the typeface?
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Fleetwing wrote:
...you seem to always find the SGs with the paper rests too
Ha! I have been lucky of late, but trust me when I say that too many of my SG models are missing their paper rests.
Repartee wrote:
And elite type, too. Anything notable about the typeface?
Nothing special about the typeface, just the standard #87 Olympia elite. That sounded bad. It's a nice typeface, very legible and practical, and perfect for my needs, so to say there's nothing special about it isn't fair; it's just a more common typeface would be a better way to describe it.
I'm of two minds when it comes to the pica versus elite conversation. I tend to gravitate toward elite-sized type, but only because I can pack more words to the page, but elite slugs are far more resistant to cleaning and requires a finer pen to edit, so pica has its allure too.
An as-found type sample before slug cleaning and a fresh ribbon. It looks much better now.
To illustrate the importance of clean slugs and a good ribbon, here's a type sample from the Erika 5 that I also recently bought:
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Uwe wrote:
What is the character after the asterisk? The one that looks like a series of dots. Is that for striking over errors?
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SoucekFan wrote:
What is the character after the asterisk? The one that looks like a series of dots. Is that for striking over errors?
This previous post explains it.