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Oh my goodness they were awful. They had to have so many factory retrospective modifications that they had to re-launch the machine as the SGE65. Dealers in England refused to sell them because they were so much trouble. They insisted on having the SGE50. But Olympia had sold the tooling for the SGE50 to East Germany. So they had to go cap in hand to the East Germans to manufacture the SGE50 for them. The clever East Germans said, 'Of course ! But we will not unless you take a load of East German portable typewriters too !' So poor old Olympia had to have a load or Erikas, which were re-branded as the Olympia Regina. My first typewriter course was on the SGE60/65 and I needed it. The Olympia dealer that I was working for was making a fortune in fitting retrospective modifications to these in the field, and charging Olympia for the privilege. Most went to British government offices. I'll bet that Olympia regretted selling them !
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Fantastic background on all this. Thanks, Tom!