The color just reminded me of Soviet-green.
 

Hi, I recently cleaned and maintened a Royal P 1931, And I really like the feeling when I type with it.
 

I'm a published author (short stories), beginning in 1964 using a Sears Portable. In those days there were backroom publishers. As time went on the internet arrived and I jumped ship for 40 years. During that period I owned at least a dozen machines.

Today I own only two - an Olympia SM9 and an Olympia electric. The SM9 is my favorite. I only got the electric because I'm an old man and I feared my fingers would fail me.

In this age publishers will not accept hardcopy. I do all my first drafts on the SM9 and somewhere down the line 3rd or 4th draft I move to an ONN tablet and Google DOCS.

And there is my daily journal that's type written. The typewriter puts me in an alternate world. It's awesome.

A couple of decades ago the professor of journalism at the University of Oregon passed and he willed his daily journal the the school of journalism. The grad students who fetched his journal returned with more than 75,000 typed pages. It was a Mother Lode.

While I own multiple typewriters, I consider myself to be more of a typewriter enthusiast than a collector. I say this in part because I have little interest in owning typewriters that aren't actually pleasing to type with. I tend to fall outside of the norm as I personally am not drawn to the older machines with the glass keys, therefore my interest lies primarily in those typewriters manufactured from the 1950's through the 1970's. That has likely saved me a fair bit of money. In addition, I've never cared for cursive output, be it a handwritten piece on one that's been typed and that has definitely saved me some money.

I'm not just informed by those machines that I currently own as I've also been able to try out a number of other typewriters in addition to those I ended up purchasing. These other machines include a 1st generation Hermes 3000 (actually owned very briefly), a Triumph machine just like the one shown early on in this thread, and wonderful Adler typewriter just to mention a few). The typewriters that I have enjoyed typing with enough to actually purchase and hold on to include three Olympia SM9's (each with a different typeface), a Facit TP1, a Smith-Corona Silent Super, an Olivetti Lettera 32, and last but not least an Olympia SG3. I also recently acquired a Voss ST24. While everything on this Voss typewriter functions as it should, it is going to require a bit more of my time before it is fully up to snuff. Still, even after I've reached that point I don't think that I personally will ever favor a carriage-shift machine over the segment-shift/basket-shift equipped typewriters that I tend to favor. 

If I had to thin the herd, from a pure typing standpoint, the Lettera 32 would be the first to go (but I do love the looks of this machine). The Facit TP1 is in need of a new platen which I plan to have addressed soon so it's hard to fully evaluate this typewriter. Once the platen has been resurfaced, I'm guessing that this will truly be an amazing typewriter, one that matches up very nicely with my preferences. The SG3 requires just a bit more effort than my portables and I might investigate this situation further at some point down the road — but as it is, no other machine out of those that I own can match the SG3 in terms of the quality of the output. The resulting pages cranked out by the SG3 just look superb. The Silent Super largely sat unused for the better part of the past five decades and was truly in need of some breaking in when I acquired it. The more time I spend with it, the more I enjoy typing with it. It just continues to get better all the time and is a wonderful typewriter all in all. Finally, all three of my SM9's are just fantastic typers. Not only do I happen to love the way they look, but they lay down type like they are an extension of myself (likely the reason that I now own three of them). Ironically, were I only allowed to keep just one machine, it would likely be the first one I ever bought, the 1966 SM9 featuring the Senatorial typeface. The truth is, I'm not sure whether I should feel elated or disappointed about this. The reality is that I could live happily with any of the typewriters that I own serving as my only typewriter. It's just nice to be able to change them up as the mood strikes me and for that I feel very fortunate.

I think that's awesome Underwood09. No offense intended to those who collect or otherwise own multiple machines such as myself, but there is just something endearing about a person that latches on to one solitary creative tool and stick with it through thick 'n thin I like this to any number of successful musicians who own but one instrument, yet they have managed to build a successful career around that lone instrument. 

The thing that I find so fascinating about all of this is how we all tend to gravitate towards different experiences. In my case, with the exception of the Smith-Corona, I would say that the Olympias, the Facit and the Voss all provide a very similar typing experience. While the Smith-Corona certainly differs from these other brands, I find that it provides an equally enjoyable experience, just in a different way. The Olivetti while still enjoyable to use is out in left field when it comes to the typewriters that i own.

On the other hand, my wife has actually taken an interest in these machines as well (I get the impression that it's not all that common for spouse's to share in the enthusiasm that most here have for typewriters). Ironically, while I've yet to find a Royal that I can really get excited about from the perspective of actually typing with the things, it turns out that they are my wife's favorite thus far. I could draw upon all sorts of different analogies from cars to guitars when it comes to this subject. But at the end of the day we all like what we like and as long as we stay true to ourselves it would seem that everyone ends up much happier in the long run. (What a drag it would be were everyone only interested in the exact same make/model, making then hard to find and expensive to purchase.) In this case I definitely choose to celebrate our differences.