beak wrote:

Steve Stephens wrote:

............. .....
Your sample shows two ways and I think both give the same result.

Ah - no - this is my whole point; the top sample shows 12 characters contained within one inch, and the bottom shows 13 characters over a distance of one inch when they are measured centre (of letter) to centre. 

Perhaps this answers itself IF there is no such thing as 13pt!

Both of your examples show 12 characters per inch.  Top illustration is pretty clear.  The bottom illustration shows 11 characters plus two HALF characters which comes out to 12 characters.  Shift the one inch lines over to the left or right on either illustration and you'll have the identical view.
 

Olymapia SM4 from  1960,  11 CPI.

Interesting that the zero is the letter O, and there are accents on a German-made typewriter, possibly to include the Swiss market.  Olympia at this time seem to have made many different specialist type sets, such as those for mathematics/surveying, and with Greek letters for algebra. 

Last edited by beak (08-6-2013 03:26:16)

Just a suggestion to anyone adding typeface examples here: make sure you type out the make/model in your post too! If you only include a photo of the typeface it will not turn up in a search.

I picked up a 1952 Hermes 2000 today, and although it looks very good, it does have a couple of small mechanical issues. It wasn't until I got it home and started typing out a few pages that I realised the keyboard had a couple of keys that you don't see very frequently (see below). I forgot to mention it in the type sample, but this 2000 has a 10-pitch typeface.

1971 Imperial 220 (a.k.a. Royal Fleetwood) by Silver-Seiko
10 pitch - 44 keys - 86 characters
Made in Japan.

Based on its character set, I'd say this machine was originally sold in Great Britain and then eventually ended up in Canada. I think the portion of a stamp (food stamp?) I found inside the machine might have survived the journey from overseas.





EDIT: I was right about that stamp having come from England. Here's a quote I found on the internet concerning the one I found in this Imperial:

"Green Shield Stamps were a widely used sales promotion and loyalty scheme The stamps could be collected when puchases were made and exchanged for goods. Green Shield Trading Stamp Company was founded in 1958 by entrepreneur Richard Tompkins, and the stamps were withdrawn in 1991."

Last edited by Uwe (05-1-2014 18:09:40)

Olympia SG1 with 15 inch carriage - partly restored, still working on it!