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Up for today in my 1961 Olympia SM7.
This one came from a lady's home in Canada who bought it brand new and lightly used it for personal correspondences for the remainder of her life.
It was Olympia's last carriage-shifting machine as they moved to basket-shifting machines with their SG's and the SM8/SM9 typewriters. The SM7 does have a pair of tension-springs that can be adjusted to make the carriage-shifting lighter or heavier as an owner could choose.
Olympia did stay with carriage-shifters for their ultra-portable machines such as the Olympia SF and the Traveller series.
This particular machine is a perfect fit for me. It allows me to type as fast as I possible can and never hick-ups with jamming type-slugs or a skipped word-spacing.
The platen even allows me to make an impression in the rubber with my thumb-nail.
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Czech out this one. A repaint.
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That's a lovely repaint color-choice.
Did you do the work, yourself ? It looks to be very well done.
I have a bit older Consul 1511 model. But think I like the lines of your machine, more.
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Mikeytap,
Is your Consul a model 1518 but without Tab functions ?
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Pete I was told by the fellow who restored it that it was a model 225. And that model 224 has tabs while this one does not. Seems the lower number should be be the one with less features. It was the first typewriter I bought to begin my new hobby. It has the boldest black type of any of my others, without looking fuzzy at the edges. Wondering if maybe that's due to the ribbon instead of the slugs? Are cotton ribbons more apt to lay down a darker print? The platen is hard.
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Mikeytap,
Just a guess on my part, but it seems the 1518 might still have lower body panel and ribbon cover in metal.
Does your machine have metal or plastic ?
The Model 224 might just be a re-branding of the model nomenclature as its production continued through the 1960's. Maybe its ribbon cover switched to plastic, as well...??? That happened a lot with other manufacturers in the mid and late 1960's and beyond.
Here is a link to a user-manual for the model 1518 on Richard Polt's web site.
Cotton ribbon looks more fibrous and more coarse than silk. The type-output on paper with cotton (in my experience) is more "fuzzy" and not as crisp and sharp as what silk ribbon leaves on paper.
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This one is all metal both body and ribbon cover. There are 4 or 5 examples of the Consul 224 on TWDB, with 2 tone color schemes of blue/white and gray/white. Can't tell if the 224 tops are plastic or metal.
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Some examples on the TWDB of model 1518 as well with the 2-tone colors, too.
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Up on deck today is my 1947 Royal Quiet De Luxe.
This is the oldest typewriter in my collection. Mostly staying in the 50-60-70's.
My next door neighbor had such a machine which belonged to her father but it had been rotting away in its case for over 30 years.
I volunteered to clean and service her machine and even secured a parts-machine with which to get her Dad's old machine back into use.
Once that machine left my work-bench after 2 weeks, I found myself missing that model...so picked one up for myself.
Mine works extremely well yet is a slow-typing machine for me. But that is great for days of slow & contemplative work where speed and snappiness do not matter much. I tend to grab this one for front porch typing when getting thoughts and ideas down on paper for a rough draft.
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I can't match the quality of the Pete E machines but I can present my weird alternatives.
To mix things up, here is my '53 tan SC Sterling with a lid from a '49 Clipper. The Sterling had an empty hole where the logo should be and the clipper had a nice chrome insert logo. So this is sort of a chocolate sunday. After fooling around with my foreign machines,I keep coming back to the Smith-Coronas as solid performers. They're like Colt 1911s versus Lugars.