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20-3-2019 20:13:09  #1671


Re: Recent Acquisitions Thread

Been meaning to post about a Royal Standard No. 1 that I got last weekend. Serial number (65xxx) puts it at 1911 as best as I can tell. Still needs further cleaning of the shell, and the type slugs need a lot of digging out, but it seems to work fine. I can't speak to alignment of upper and lower case until I clean the slugs and install a ribbon.There was sticking with the space bar; one of the linkages connecting  the space bar to the rest of the mechanism was rubbing against the slot where it passes through the shell. And the type bar rest (leather?) is now rock hard, so the typebars go <clunk> when they return. Not serious.

Cosmetically, it's OK -- the decals are worn, and the finish could be better, but it's pretty rust free. The platen, feed rollers and feet all seem usable. I got it from the granddaughter of the person who owned it -- apparently she used it at work and was allowed to take it with her when she retired.

Interesting machine -- I love the look of it, with the "stair steps" and the, yes, flatter layout than the No. 10 and later machines. No back space feature; no bichrome ribbon setting; no automatic ribbon reverse. I do not have a No, 5 so I don't know whether these features were added on that model. At first I thought a key was missing, since there was a slot above the right hand shift key. But that is where the tab key would have been, and there are no tab stops or tab rail on the back of the machine. The tabulator was a $10 add-on to the $65 price, based on the manual posted at Richard Polt's site. And, looking at TWDB, it appears that a lot of machines were sold without the tabulator.

 

21-3-2019 11:47:40  #1672


Re: Recent Acquisitions Thread

Fleetwing's assessment of the Studio 44 is spot on. I've wasted countless hours tinkering with the Studio and Lexikon models assuming that there had to be a better type action in there, but I could never get any of those machines to perform well enough that I'd actually want to use them for more than a few sentences at a time.

Fragpie, that quote reads like someone who is making excuses for the Studio 44, someone who couldn't reconcile the discord between its looks and performance and attempted to justify it with some silly artistic sentiment. To defend the Studio 44 by stating it "has a softness to it, and seems to mute the actual mechanicals at work" is more of an insult than praise. "Softness" and "muted mechanicals" are not characteristics that I want in a machine; when you're typing for hours on end a good machine is defined by its direct responsiveness and mechanical efficiency. The best machines that I type with are the ones that require the least amount of effort.


The pronoun has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
     Thread Starter
 

21-3-2019 12:22:07  #1673


Re: Recent Acquisitions Thread

Uwe-- I agree.  Quietriters are maybe just a bit too far the other direction; 5-Series SC seem to me the best by far.  

The Olivetti design aesthetic is good, but also amusing: 

(stereotypical) Italian men:  1)  Flashy, fashionable, trendy
                                            2)  Macho, manly
                                            3)  Cutest widdle shoes

Olivetti Studio 44:               1)  Flashy, fashionable, trendy
                                           2)  Macho, manly keystroke required
                                           3)  Cutest widdle spacebar

 

25-3-2019 16:46:46  #1674


Re: Recent Acquisitions Thread

I picked up yet another SF De Luxe. This one dates from 1963. It’s a cursive script model. Curiously, the blue ribbon cover doesn’t match the cream coloured base, and the other coloured variants of this model I’ve seen generally don’t have the green shift keys or carriage knobs. I guess I’ll never know if this came from the factory this way, or if the ribbon cover was swapped with another machine? Anyone out there have one with a blue base and a cream top?

 

25-3-2019 17:42:39  #1675


Re: Recent Acquisitions Thread

My educated guess is that the ribbon cover has been swopped over and the original colour was cream.  Uwe is the expert but I think the SF DeLuxe came in cream, powder blue and pink.  I am pretty sure that the green shift keys and platen knobs make it an early model, but again Uwe would know for sure.

 

26-3-2019 11:43:25  #1676


Re: Recent Acquisitions Thread

Yesterday I got a lead that someone had tossed an old horn-model Victor phonograph into the city dump. Fortunately when I got there after work, that was not the case. The lady who tends the mausoleum of consumerism OWNS a phonograph, a nice internal-horn cabinet model--the famous upright Victrola. She wants to sell it but I already have a nice upright Victrola...

But in the E-Waste pile I spied an IBM Selectric III and we got chatting about typewriters. She says the words a collector thrills at:

"Oh! There was someone in here earlier today with a really old typewriter--a great big one with the long keys on it. It's not in here...(poking through e-waste) but I hope he didn't throw it out. I told him to save it but he'd been cleaning out a building..."

And both of us went to go raid the scrap iron bin. In the second dumpster, halfway down on its side, was a beautiful Remington KMC--it needs a lot of tuning up, as the escapement isn't working and the paint is faded, but other than the 4/$ keytop it's in one piece. I threw aside a heap of artificial Christmas trees and dove.
"That's a good kind of typewriter to find," I said, dragging it over the side of the dumpster. "Why do people do this?"

And the Lady of the Dump summed it all up in her wonderful Southern drawl...

"Because they's a Dumb-A$$!"

Well said, and well put. The Selectric and the KMC went home that evening.


 

 

26-3-2019 15:32:01  #1677


Re: Recent Acquisitions Thread

Jack Kerouac wrote:

… blue ribbon cover doesn’t match the cream coloured base, and the other coloured variants of this model I’ve seen generally don’t have the green shift keys or carriage knobs.

Fully agree with Tom. The ribbon cover is not original to the machine. Proof of this is that the green accent plastic was only used for the white models (see photo of my '63 SF De Luxe) for most of their production run. A light blue variant would have had white accent plastic.


The pronoun has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
     Thread Starter
 

28-3-2019 13:23:57  #1678


Re: Recent Acquisitions Thread

Just picked up three SGs locally today, for $15 each. The first is a 1961 SG1, without the paper injector or double spacing, which I think may be referred to as an SG1N? Pica font size. One problem with it, which will be posted in the Repairs/Maintenance subforum.

Also, two SG3s, from 1972 and 1978, as best as I can tell. The 1978 has some Spanish characters, n with tilde and c with cedilla; also a cursive lower case l (for what, I'm not certain). The typebars were all gummed up, but mineral spirits and exercising seem to have cleared it up. The paper injector lever was bent, but I've corrected that. Elite font.

The 1972 is cosmetically the worst of the three -- paper injector lever is missing its plastic handle, but is still usable. The plastic tip is missing from the touch control lever -- not a problem. The bell is silent, so hopefully removing the back panel from the carriage will allow me to clean things up and unstick them. No paper support on this one, but for me that is the norm with the SGs. Pica font.

 

28-3-2019 18:22:39  #1679


Re: Recent Acquisitions Thread

Fleetwing wrote:

Just picked up three SGs locally today, for $15 each. The first is a 1961 SG1, without the paper injector or double spacing, which I think may be referred to as an SG1N?

SCORE!  That's less than one percent of what they cost new! 

And yes, from 1956 on it was known as the SG1-N model.

 


The pronoun has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
     Thread Starter
 

28-3-2019 21:56:52  #1680


Re: Recent Acquisitions Thread

I figured out the keyboard on the 1978 SG3 -- according to the July 1, 1966 catalog (p. 31), it's the Library keyboard. Characters are as noted above -- also, dead key for the "grave" and "aigu" accents; brackets ([ ]); and the script lower case l is the liter symbol, I believe. Not sure what makes those special characters a "library" keyboard, but at least I know what to call it.

Initial inspection of this machine shows a couple of apparent cost-cutting measures: the line spacing lever is of a somewhat cheaper construction -- looks stamped, rather than cast. Also, the type guide is somewhat thinner and more pointed than on earlier SGs, and is probably stamped as well. No machine turning on the type guide. 

 

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