Typewriter Talk / My "New" Ambassador. What a wonderful beast.

**Posted by rdnzl** 11-3-2020 15:17:50

I got this today. It is a monster of a typewriter. I had no idea they are this large and heavy. But I like that. No moving around on my desk, for sure. It has an interesting font. The letters are all caps. Its just that the CAPS are larger than the non cap letters. What is this font called?

**Posted by thetypewriterman** 11-3-2020 15:44:45

These are lovely machines and very under-rated. People rave about the Hermes 3000 portable which sells for mega-bucks, whilst ignoring the Ambassador, which sells for peanuts ! In fact I bought a 1968 Ambassador recently for £15 (that's about $18 US) for my wife, although I will say that I spent two working days on it and fitted a re-rubbered platen, so in the end not as cheap as you might think. She fell in love with the Ambassador when I had one in for a customer and let her try it - once driven, forever smitten ! I think the typeface on your machine is 'Double Gothic'. Anyone else have any ideas on what it is called ?

**Posted by rdnzl** 11-3-2020 15:47:36

I was going to give it a name, but she already has one. Betty. It's on a brass plate on top of the cover. Betty had a nice machine, and it will carry on with her name. Ambassador Betty.

**Posted by Laurenz van Gaalen** 11-3-2020 16:06:30

Maybe the typeface is the Block Pica?
https://munk.org/typecast/2011/04/24/1964-nomda-blue-book-hermes-font-styles/

**Posted by Uwe** 11-3-2020 17:05:24

If you want the foundry-specific name for the typeface you need to provide the identification marking found on any of the Ambassador's type slugs.

I think that the majority of the Hermes portables I own are equipped with Setag slugs, but I've noted others that are equipped with Caracteres, Iris, Ransmayer & Rodrian, and Tangensbut slugs too.

**Posted by rdnzl** 11-3-2020 17:12:00

It was typing quite well. So I decided to blow out some dust and wipe off the exterior. NOW is is doing this. Any ideas on what I did to make this happen? Then I strike a key, it tries to take its neighbors along for the ride.

**Posted by rdnzl** 11-3-2020 18:15:57

The odd thing is, it only does it on keys to the left of Zero, O, L. and period. On those keys and the ones to their right, this does no happen.

**Posted by thetypewriterman** 12-3-2020 03:50:28

Difficult to say without examining your machine, but my guess is that you have disturbed a foreign object in there. Possibly a paperclip moving about - although it is not unknown for a ballpoint pen to be trapped inside a full-size office manual.

**Posted by rdnzl** 12-3-2020 10:28:08

I'm going to give it a thorough exam today. You might be right. Maybe when I laid it on its back to blow out some dust, something got dislodged that was in there, and now is blocking something.

**Posted by rdnzl** 12-3-2020 12:20:51

Found the culprit! It looks like a piece of thick leather was loose under there and was flapping around and interfering with the keybars. I'm guessing it was supposed to be glued to a rail or something, and is probably a rest for the typebars to sit on, as it has lines crossing it. I pulled it out completely and everything works just fine.