BrianE wrote:

Pica as a typeface name seems confusing.

That's because pica isn't a typeface, it's a type size.

BrianE wrote:

So saying the following still redundant?
Royal #10 10CPI (pica)
Royal De Luxe 12CPI (pica)

Redundant and incorrect. Pica = 10-pitch type. Elite = 12-pitch type. MOST collectors would say "Royal with pica type," or "Royal with elite type."

BrianE wrote:

Characters per inch might be helpful.  Easier way of asking sellers about slug size.

You might as well ask a seller the circumference of the moon in millimeters because most have as good a chance of knowing that as they will the pitch or CPI of grandma's typewriter they're selling. If you want a pretty good indicator of a machine's pitch look at the page ruler on the carriage. If equipped with a regular width platen most will have a 0-80 scale for pica, or a 0-96 scale for elite.

BrianE wrote:

Quick search turned up Smith Corona with a 'jeweled escapement.'  Marketing or design improvement?

Design improvement used for marketing. A similar concept to the jewels used in a watch for high wear bearings, SCM introduced a jeweled main bearing in the escapement. 
 

Back with another question I'm afraid.

This time it has to do with asking sellers how long the scale is to determine type size.

I'll use an Olympia SM 3 with what I think the seller told me was a 14 or 15 inch carriage as example.  (Thinking file folders) 

The scale was 130, so I asked what size the typeface or 'pitch' was in characters per inch, or just measure the scale itself.

On a royal 10 & De Luxe, pica measured  0 to 80  at around 8" while elite measured about 6 - 5/8"

Seller of Olympia replied his is around 7- 1/4" and also sent a photo of some random letters-- 11 to an inch.

So lets say on a standard machine, you've got one that's 80 and one that's 90 units.  One's pica and the other elite?  A size in between?  Europe will be different?

Thanks for putting up with me.  Thought I had a handle on scale as a sort of fuction of x where the variable is the typeface.  Evidently not!   ; )

Brian

Last edited by BrianE (21-7-2015 18:43:02)

BrianE wrote:

Back with another question I'm afraid.

This time it has to do with asking sellers how long the scale is to determine type size.

... snip...

So lets say on a standard machine, you've got one that's 80 and one that's 90 units.  One's pica and the other elite?  A size in between?  Europe will be different?

Thanks for putting up with me.  Thought I had a handle on scale as a sort of fuction of x where the variable is the typeface.  Evidently not!   ; )

Brian

It's simple, Brian. Pica is ten characters per inch and elite is 12 characters per inch. "Pica" and "elite" do not mean anything else in the typewriter world. (The fact that some typefaces have those words in their names is irrelevant to this measurement idea.) There are other pitch sizes but I don't think they have particular names. Also, these measurements have nothing to do with the height of the characters, only the pitch.

Sure, the European system is different because it's usually based on the metric system, as one would expect. Most Olympias I have seen are about 11 cpi. I have not seen any explanation of the European system. Anybody? Bueller?

Easiest way to deal with this if you have the machine in front of you is to note the number of tick marks in one inch on one of the scales. 10 ticks; 11 ticks; 12 ticks; 10.2 ticks? If you have only a picture, then you'll have to eyeball it and apply experience, like Kat says. The highest number on the right end of the scale can only be a rule-of-thumb indicator unless you know the exact number of inches it covers. It's just a quick way to estimate from the pic what pitch the thing has. Ask the seller "How many ticks in one inch?" if you really care, rather than "How long is the carriage?"---and anyway it's the platen, not the carriage, that you're interested in; and then you have to explain to the seller what these things are and he'll wonder, "Is this guy worth the hassle?"

--30--

BrianE wrote:

Keep it simple and just look at it.

This is really good advice for *life*, I find... ;)

Last edited by KatLondon (25-7-2015 08:48:11)

I have that book - it was kind of like reading a series of very interesting magazine articles. The typography community hates it:
http://typographica.org/typography-books/just-my-type-a-book-about-fonts/

A couple of other very interesting books that I have are this: 
http://redstone.myshopify.com/products/abz-alphabets-and-other-signs

and this ('this is not a book about fonts. It is a book about how to use them'):
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/69736.Thinking_with_Type