1 of 1- KatLondon
- Key Master
Offline 
- From: London
- Registered: 11-10-2014
- Posts: 995
My rusty little Silent-Super
Ztyper has asked for a pictture of this typerwriter to prove that his KMG is the rustiest! This one has cleaened up really icely but my re-rustifying skills are not really up to the home stretch. It's basically sort of spotted here and there all over.
To recap, this wwas the first fifties Smith-Corona I ever saw on ebay.co.uk. It has a disconnected 5 (and £) key, which is turning out to be a pain in the arse as this is 2015; by next year I'm hoping it will be less of an annoyance. Several of the keys were sticking really badly and something strange had happened to the O, deep underneath - it was bent ut of shape in the inner workings and had to be isolated and bent back withtweezers, as it was rubbing the others and wouldn\t go back down. Done it though.
This one was utterly filthy inside and both it and the case had lots of mildew. I'm only just beginning to vanquish the smell. I had a problem with the ribbon threading right after cleaning it - somehow the ribbon got twisted, and the tops of the letters weren't printing, and it threw me into a frenzy of frustration and annoyance for days before I worked out that it was only the ribbon! It types like a dream, now, though, and I love love love it. Even my slightly jaded other half, when I showed him somethng I'd written on it, immediately exclaimed, 'Oh! I REALLY like this typeface...'
Anyway, here is the eBay picture:
Here, although pictures can never capture the filth, is the underneath when it first arrived: 
And here are some I took just a minute ago:
Since then, there's been a little rash of these - an identical but very clean and pretty one is ending in a few days, and a couple of Clippers have fetched lots of money. Another, sky-blue, one is abotu to do the same this weekend. But I am going to remain faithful to this one, now I've fixed it up. Any tips regarding the mould-related discolouration would be welcome...
- ztyper
- Key Master
Offline
- From: Somewhere in New Jersey
- Registered: 01-10-2014
- Posts: 773
Re: My rusty little Silent-Super
Oooooh... It looks wonderful compared to when you first got it. I really like the grey-green key and body colour scheme. I've never seen a SC with the key arrangment though, with the top bank all funky and the keys to the right of the letters. Perhaps it was different for the UK? And now thinking about it, the green Silent-Super I gave to my girlfriend had a "1" key on it, while I've never seen it anywhere else. Weird. But excellent job on restoring it! If only I could find that Imperial 66 around here...
A high schooler with a lot of typewriters. That's pretty much about it.
- Uwe
- Moderator
Offline
- From: Toronto, Canada
- Registered: 12-3-2013
- Posts: 4,410
Re: My rusty little Silent-Super
ztyper wrote:
I've never seen a SC with the key arrangment though, with the top bank all funky and the keys to the right of the letters. Perhaps it was different for the UK?
The tabulator set and clear keys where found on the right side of the keyboard on all Super and Silent-Super models.
And now thinking about it, the green Silent-Super I gave to my girlfriend had a "1" key on it, while I've never seen it anywhere else. Weird.
You have that backwards. It's very common to see a 44 key arrangement (with the 1 key) on a Super and Silent-Super. In fact, I don't recall having ever seen a 42 key version of any Super variant like the one that KatLondon has.
Kat, could you post the serial number for your machine?
The pronoun I has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
- ztyper
- Key Master
Offline
- From: Somewhere in New Jersey
- Registered: 01-10-2014
- Posts: 773
Re: My rusty little Silent-Super
No, no, I'm not talking about the tab set/clear. I specifically remember that because I remember remarking how odd it was compared to my SM-9. I think it's pretty cool. I was remarking on how the keys that would usually be fractions, */- +/= and ?/slash are different.
A high schooler with a lot of typewriters. That's pretty much about it.
- KatLondon
- Key Master
Offline
- From: London
- Registered: 11-10-2014
- Posts: 995
Re: My rusty little Silent-Super
Hi guys, I'm glad you're finding it interesting! Ive just checked, and the pristine one thats on eBay has keys like yours, Uwe. I've seen SOO many different arrangement of those top - and the side - keys, I guess it never occurred to me that they should be uniform. I should take pictures of the key arrangements of all my typewriters.
But this model was clearly made for export and I wonder if they skimped on keys to save costs, or something.
Uwe, the serial number is quite early, 5T 132751 - according to the database that places it around end of June 1954, I reckon.
Ztyper I'm glad you think I did a good job! It was amazing to see the colour actually change in front of my eyes as I cleaned it - all that nicotine. I've had others do that too. And I I feel there must be more I can do with all the rust marks, but not sure what.
- •
Thread Starter- Uwe
- Moderator
Offline
- From: Toronto, Canada
- Registered: 12-3-2013
- Posts: 4,410
Re: My rusty little Silent-Super
Like all manufacturers, Smith-Corona offered numerous keyboard choices. Olympia at one point had over 120 different keyboards available.
For me, the only thing strange about Kat's machine is that it only has 42 keys. One of the defining features of the Super model was that it had 44 keys, so I was confused. However, once I knew that it's a second production year model, it seemed possible that all of the Silent-Super machines that I was familiar with were produced after 1954, which isn't really a surprise given that the '53 and '54 Super models were produced in relatively low numbers compared to those of subsequent years. And a little poking around proved my theory: All of the first and second year Super models that I found searching the internet only had 42 keys. It was something interesting to learn, and will be something to look out for; I usually just pass over that model because I already have a few, but now that I know the early ones were different it will be something to add to the collection.
The pronoun I has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
- KatLondon
- Key Master
Offline
- From: London
- Registered: 11-10-2014
- Posts: 995
Re: My rusty little Silent-Super
Thanks for that, Uwe; I've learned something too!
- •
Thread Starter