Comparing my Olympia SM2 and the Finger-Flite Champion, I totally agree with you.The Finger-Flite is definitely fast, but it looks like it won´t endure as much punishment as the Olympia, but are beautiful.

Uwe wrote:

typngon12a wrote:

I can see them in a newsroom of the forties and fifties.

It might be a romantic notion, but it's not a practical one. Newsrooms, or any office environment where typewriters were subjected to heavy work loads, were filled with standard models, not portables. Portables were never built to withstand the rigors of professional typing assignments, they were designed for convenience and portability, so although someone in a newsroom who was away on assignment might lug a portable along, you can bet that their desk back at the office had standard sitting on it.

Take a look at this '50s newsroom, not a portable to be seen anywhere. All standards, and in this example it looks to be mostly Royals. I have a few typewriters that came from mass media offices, albeit from the '60s, and they are all standards as well (an Olympia, an Olivetti, and a Remington).

Just a SWAG (Scientific Wild-Arsed Guess), but from what I remember, didn't reporters use portable typewriters in the field, but when they got back to the office they used uprights--or standards?  My guess also has it (and from watching a few old movies.  Reliable sources, huh?), at sporting events, particularly in stadium mezzanine offices that look out over the fields, didn't they also have uprights stationed there too for reporters to use?  Portables, I understand, were designed for what I call "short order typing,"  like letters, recipes, coupla-page reports, etc.  But for the grinding, grueling, sometimes all-niters, a heavy-duty upright would be the way to go.  And, one other thing:  Manual upright typewriters were the main typewriters used in offices for a very long time, but electrics started creeping in very slowly, beginning as specialty typewriters for multiple carbon copies in the thirties, forties, and fifties--but gained popularity in the sixties--especially with the advent of the IBM Selectric.  By the eighties, electric typewriters dominated the atmosphere--until they started being edged almost literally out the windows.  And yes, I was out there catching many of 'em as they fell!!  Whoo boy, such good times!!