1 - brozzy
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Smith Corona Classic 12
I recently found a SCM Classic 12 Made in Canada, serial 6LT2-173656. This leads me to conclude that it is a 1965. I do note that there is no strong database for Canadian-made Classic 12s.
Can anybody explain why some Classic 12s have the Tab keys over the top row of keys and some like mine have the Cl and Set along the right side? Within the various suggested years of production?
Did SCM swap the layouts during model years? Or is this simply misidentification of the year, and I should assume that any TW with the Tab keys on the top are from the late 60s/early 70s and mine is very likely from 1965? I have seen this in online photos of other models like the Galaxie.
- skywatcher
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Re: Smith Corona Classic 12
Hi Brozzy
Welcome to the Forum, I see you're just the other side of the mountains from me. To answer your question, the later model SCM Smith-Corona typewriters are still somewhat of a puzzle. Building up enough information to form a workable database is still an ongoing project, click here to see. Ted Monk, archivist of the Typewriter Database is inviting anyone who has a typewriter such as yours and has either a dated sales receipt, or has found a date written or ink stamped somewhere on the typewriter's frame, to submit that information to the Database to help with this project.
As for the position of the tabulator key verses tabulator bar, this too may become clearer once a viable database has been built. I'm sure you've heard the old joke about how the word Assume is put together. If you assume, you make an ass out of u and me. All the best,
Sky
We humans go through many computers in our lives, but in their lives, typewriters go through many of us.
In that way, they’re like violins, like ancestral swords. So I use mine with honor and treat them with respect.
I try to leave them in better condition than I met them. I am not their first user, nor will I be their last.
Frederic S. Durbin. (Typewriter mania and the modern writer)
- brozzy
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Re: Smith Corona Classic 12
Hi Sky. I will search more diligently for the date code, but I did not observe one in my first cleaning.
Any thoughts as to whether the 6LT2 prefix indicates a Canadian model? I don't see the 2 anywhere in any databases.
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Thread Starter- Uwe
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Re: Smith Corona Classic 12
Regarding this subject, we have an existing thread that will provide some additional information:
Smith-Corona Date Codes - Please Help!
I have at least one Classic 12 that has the 6LT2 prefix, and it was made in Canada. I've recorded it as being an early '60s model (at the moment I don't recall what the basis for that assumption was other than perhaps its serial number being lower than those that had confirmed manufacture years). I also have Canadian-made 12s that use the common 6LTV prefix, which also appears on units manufactured in the United States. At the moment I wouldn't conclude that the 2 designates it as being Canadian in origin.
The pronoun I has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
- skywatcher
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Re: Smith Corona Classic 12
Hi Again Brozzy
Although this Smith-Corona Classic-12 was made in the USA, this is the number I'm referring to as being an ink stamped number (slide the ribbon cover forward and it's on the right side of the frame).
This number (3 78) looks to me like it could be a date indicating the unit was built in March of 1978. The serial number of this unit is 6LTV-402932-H. Whether this helps anyone, I don't know, but I thought It's all information. All the best,
Sky
We humans go through many computers in our lives, but in their lives, typewriters go through many of us.
In that way, they’re like violins, like ancestral swords. So I use mine with honor and treat them with respect.
I try to leave them in better condition than I met them. I am not their first user, nor will I be their last.
Frederic S. Durbin. (Typewriter mania and the modern writer)
- brozzy
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Re: Smith Corona Classic 12
I did a fairly thorough inspection and cleaning yesterday and found no numbers or paper labels indicating date codes anywhere. I still like my idea that mine is older than the ones with the tab key over the keyboard.
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Thread Starter- Uwe
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Re: Smith Corona Classic 12
It seems that most of those paper labels fell off over the years, perhaps because the glue that was used dried out, so it's not a surprise that you didn't find them.
Regarding the location of the keyboard tab controls, there's no mystery surrounding this. The right-side location was a carryover from the previous generation 5-series models (late '40s to early '60s). When Smith-Corona introduced the 6-series models, those with the keyboard tabulator control feature retained the 5-series layout. I don't know the exact year that the design was updated, but Smith-Corona eventually relocated the keyboard tab controls on its portable models.
The pronoun I has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
- brozzy
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Re: Smith Corona Classic 12
Thanks for these notes and photos Uwe. The problem is that "on the Internet" some people are identifying photos of writers with the Tab key on top as early sixties issues and ones with the Tab key on the right as 70s issues. Sheesh!!
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Thread Starter- Uwe
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Re: Smith Corona Classic 12
It's possible that both might be true...
I've never dug into this detail, but it seems to me that the change was made fairly early in the production history of the 6-series, so it's possible that a photo of a writer using an updated tab model could be from 1964. Conversely, a photo could have been taken of a writer during the early '70s with a right-side tab model that was bought a decade earlier.
It shouldn't be very difficult to figure out the actual changeover year; surely someone has done that already?!?
The pronoun I has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
- M. Höhne
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Re: Smith Corona Classic 12
brozzy wrote:
Thanks for these notes and photos Uwe. The problem is that "on the Internet" some people are identifying photos of writers with the Tab key on top as early sixties issues and ones with the Tab key on the right as 70s issues. Sheesh!!
Well, just don't read the internet, or if you must, then don't take it seriously and don't base decisions on it without reliable corroboration. Of course, that is just what you are doing here, isn't it?
