1 of 1- Devorum
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Acquired my first typewriter, have a few questions.
I recently saw a Remington typewriter at a consignment store for a reasonable price, and something told me I had to have it. It's in great condition, just a bit of easily cleaned rust and a missing left margin stop on the carriage.
I'm having a bit of difficulty pinning down exactly what it is and when it was maufactured, however. I think I have it narrowed down to a Super-Riter from 1950, but it has a super wide carriage that I haven't seen on any examples I could find on the net. The typewriter database also doesn't list it as a feature on any of their Super-Riter models.
I popped the rear panel off and found an age-yellowed scrap of paper taped inside from someone who was also looking into it, I believe. It has the model number, which I strained to find but could not, and what appears to be a serial number, I think.
The model umber is: J1773925
The serial (?) number is: 2-57550
I'd really like to be able to acquire a normal sized carriage for it, and possibly do some restoration on it, but don't even know where to start looking.
Last edited by Devorum (15-4-2015 19:31:07)
- ztyper
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Re: Acquired my first typewriter, have a few questions.
Well first off, congratulations on your new typewriter! If you're like a lot of us, you'll start wanting more, but this Remington will settle you for now.
To be quite honest, getting a regular sized carriage will be rather difficult if it is all by itself. As far as I know, Remington did not have an easily removeable carriage. To obtain a carriage, one would have to find a parts machine with the right carriage. Then you would have to remove it off of the parts machine, remove the large carriage from your machine, and replace the large carriage with the regular one. Carriage removal, however, is not an easy task. You must know what you are getting yourself into before you remove it. For those who are new, I do not recommend at all to remove it. Unless you are mechanically inclined, and are very careful, do attempt to do it until you know more about the machine and how it goes back together. For now, just do restoration on it. Would you mind posting a picture of this particular machine?
A high schooler with a lot of typewriters. That's pretty much about it.
- Devorum
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Re: Acquired my first typewriter, have a few questions.
I tried to post a picture, but I hadn't met the minimum post requirement for links.
Thanks for the information, and I'll try to get a picture up when I get on my computer in the morning!
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Thread Starter- KatLondon
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Re: Acquired my first typewriter, have a few questions.
Hi Devorum,
I did a bit of googling on 'Remington Super-Riter 1950', and came up with these picture search results.
As you can see, as well as the more common portable machine for home use that we're used to thinking of with this model, there was a standard (i.e., larger, office) model of the Super-Riter, and you can see that the first machine in the search results is one of these, with a REALLY long carriage. I clicked it, and it was in a legal office, where the papers were A3-sized. And two of the next ones also have a longer carriage, though not *as* long.
But you're right - by far most of the Super-Riters you see - and the related Letter-Riters and Quiet-Riters - are home portables with carriages effectively no wider than the machines themselves. And these machines are quite common. (I have a Quiet-Riter here, the second machine I ever bought.)
I have to say, ztyper is right about trying to replace the carriage. The first question is: replace it with what? It's not that easy to get new parts for these old machines, and if you bought a new machine for its carriage you might as well keep the new machine together and just use it for typing. (On UK eBay at least, the price differential isn't that huge: you'd pay £20ish for one of those that someone says isn't working; but if you're patient you can get one that someone says is working fine for the same price. And in good condition they go for about £40 or less. (Also, the seller may not even have the skills to say how well it's working or how easy it is to fix, so your 'broken' bargain might really be perfect after one small fix... And I've definitely had a few typewriters that were sold as 'working' but were sort of... not really. But all of that is a different story, and is only to illustrate the randomness of trying to buy a machine for spares.)
And that's before you try to get the carriage/s off and then back on. The few times I have tried to remove even a platen, I've failed to get it to budge! The upside of all this is that you now have carte blanche to just buy more typewriters. We all started with one... ;)
On another note, those two numbers - the top one, beginning with J, is your serial number, and yours dates your machine to 1950, the first year the Super-Riters were made. Congratulations! Looking forward to seeing the picture.
Last edited by KatLondon (16-4-2015 01:43:38)
- Devorum
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Re: Acquired my first typewriter, have a few questions.
Ok, here's the picture. As you can see, there's a bit of rust on the left hand side, and the margin stop is missing on that side as well. I'm not sure if that is replaceable, but it's a minor issue regardless. The machine works beautifully, and seems to be pretty well aligned and such for a $30 find at a consignment shop.
The long carriage doesn't really bother me for typing, it's just kind of a pain for storage. If it's that big of a problem to find and swap, I'll just leave it as is! I'm pretty mechancically handy (I spent 15 years repairing mechanaical and electronic avionics systems for the US Air Force), and even found an old Army guide on typewriter maintenance and repair from the late '40s that includes a basic Remington machine, but I don't want to tackle something that big right off.
Last edited by Devorum (16-4-2015 09:08:35)
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Thread Starter- KatLondon
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Re: Acquired my first typewriter, have a few questions.
Love it! Until you started this thread I never even knew there was a standard version of the Super/Letter/Quiet Riter. This is like the big older brother of my machine. It looks fantastically authoritative, which is a quality the Quiet Riter also has - like riding in one of those big old cars.
Do you mean right hand side?
The silver guide on the left of the paper table is for aligning the paper against so your paper is in the right relationship to the margins you've set, but I don't know how the margins work on that machine. It's correct that there's only one of it.
What does the little knob in the front do?
- Devorum
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Re: Acquired my first typewriter, have a few questions.
KatLondon wrote:
Love it! Until you started this thread I never even knew there was a standard version of the Super/Letter/Quiet Riter. This is like the big older brother of my machine. It looks fantastically authoritative, which is a quality the Quiet Riter also has - like riding in one of those big old cars.
Do you mean right hand side?
The silver guide on the left of the paper table is for aligning the paper against so your paper is in the right relationship to the margins you've set, but I don't know how the margins work on that machine. It's correct that there's only one of it.
What does the little knob in the front do?
I suppose I do mean right hand side. I was going from the typewriter's view.
And the little knob in the middle under Remington? It's the ribbon reverser. Switch it over once your ribbon is at the end, and it winds back the other way as you continue typing.
This thing feels very solid, which I love. I had an IBM electric when I was in high school, and it felt plastic and flimsy. It weighs quite a bit, though I'm not sure of the exact weight.
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Thread Starter- Uwe
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Re: Acquired my first typewriter, have a few questions.
Until you started this thread I never even knew there was a standard version of the Super/Letter/Quiet Riter.
The ribbon reverse swtich on the front was dropped later on in the machine's production history. Here's my Super-Riter next to a Quiet-Riter for comparision:
And what the machine looks like with the regular width carriage:
The pronoun I has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
- KatLondon
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Re: Acquired my first typewriter, have a few questions.
Uwe I like those 'mummy & baby' shots you do. They always make me want more typewriters... and look at the levers on these two! One goes up, the other down... it's like fantastically expressive gesticulation.
