Cybill,

Here might be a bit of a clue.  There is currently an SGE 35 running on eBay out of Japan...and rather that having the A61 code, it has a J61 code.

Not the keyboard is fully of Japanese characters under each of the letter key-top.
.

Yes, the letter seems to be some kind of country code.
A for America
J for Japan
D for Deutschland
Not sure what the number 51 or 61 means.
On the German internet classifieds 'Kleinanzeigen' can be found more examples for the letter D:
https://www.kleinanzeigen.de/s-olympia-35-schreibmaschine/k0

On the Spanish classifieds 'todocoleccion' I found two SGE 35 machines with Spanish keyboard layout and the code F51 on the name plate. I would assume the letter would be a S for Spain but not a F. I would normally (logically) expect the letter F on a machine with a French keyboard. I haven't been able to find a French machine yet.

Photos of the two Spanish machines from 'todocoleccion':
#1



#2



I hope this helps a bit.
-Rainer
 

Your Olympia SGE is a nice beast, Pete!

I don't really have new informations about the letter/number code on the name plates.
At the moment I can only assume that it could be a code to distinguish between different country variants and features of the machine. This would be most important for service and spare parts. A spare parts list for code 'D51' would be different from a spare parts list 'F51'. So the service people around the world could easily find the right part number for a broken Japanese A-key for instance. Without any country code it would be hard to find specific parts.

And at first this code could helped the workers then during production to assemble the right parts (beside other coding e.g. the very important pitch) and of course to place the right name plate on the machine according to the machine's specific production card. As we can see the name plates beside the machine type differ mostly in V/Hz and the specific country rules of electrical safety.

The pitch of the machine and the used size of the carriage could be included in the code but for the carriage size I don't think so. Sometimes the machines would be ordered by the customers with two different carriage sizes for exchange or could be extra ordered later. Therefore a code could not be exclusive for such a machine as a whole - only for the body.

As all this is only an assumption the codes could be also have an other meaning.
Let's see if we can solve this puzzle sometime.

About me:
From 1976 to 1989 I have worked at the Triumph-Adler production factory 'Adlerwerke' in Frankfurt/Germany. I had my apprenticeship there as a mechanic from 1976 to 1980. Electric type bar typewriters were produced there until 1981. After that only daisy wheel typewriters were produced there. I'm now 65 years old. I'm not a typewriter collector but I do have recently acquired a 'Triumph electric 151f' from 1978 which brings back some memories to me. I will introduce myself and my typewriter in the forum soon.

-Rainer


 

Additional examples of machines and corresponding name plates found in German classified ads:

SGE 30 D1



SGE 35 D51 (same code as in post #4 above)



SGE D 52



SGE 45 (no additional code)



So the general type of naming and coding is somewhat obscure and not constant. Maybe the guys at Olympia changed their mind over time as it was in some way nescessary. I don't know.