Typewriter Talk / 'Olympia Model 35 A61' vs SGE 35?

**Posted by Cybill** 04-1-2025 01:52:12

Hello! I have an OIympia Model 35 A61, and have been searching for information that would help me decode the model name. To my eye it's identical to an SGE 35, but there must be some difference? I read a comment on another thread that said an Olympia Model SGE A62, was labeled as such specifically for schools. So maybe A61 has a different sales channel than SGE? I'm just curious about the naming conventions and what they indicate about the machine SGE 30 vs 35/40/45/50 or A61/62 etc. I haven't found anything online yet. Thanks

**Posted by Pete E.** 06-1-2025 17:33:12

Hi Cybill,

Here is a comparison I did with photos of a SGE-30 (no my machine) and my SGE-35.

My machine is labeled as a SGE 35 A61. I do not have a clue as to what A61 might mean.

I have also seen photos of other SGE 35 machines and they were missing the "A61" part on their name-plate.
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**Posted by Pete E.** 06-1-2025 18:28:43

Cybill,

Here might be a bit of a clue. There is currently an SGE 35 running on eBay out of Japan...and rather that having the A61 code, it has a J61 code.

Not the keyboard is fully of Japanese characters under each of the letter key-top.
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**Posted by Cybill** 07-1-2025 22:58:57

Oh interesting so maybe it's a keyboard type indicator. There's an SGE 35 on typewriter database listed as "SGE 35 D51" with a German layout. I'll have to keep an eye out and see how many variations I come across.

**Posted by Eagle** 08-1-2025 10:01:29

Yes, the letter seems to be some kind of country code.
A for America
J for Japan
D for Deutschland
Not sure what the number 51 or 61 means.
On the German internet classifieds 'Kleinanzeigen' can be found more examples for the letter D:
https://www.kleinanzeigen.de/s-olympia-35-schreibmaschine/k0

On the Spanish classifieds 'todocoleccion' I found two SGE 35 machines with Spanish keyboard layout and the code F51 on the name plate. I would assume the letter would be a S for Spain but not a F. I would normally (logically) expect the letter F on a machine with a French keyboard. I haven't been able to find a French machine yet.

Photos of the two Spanish machines from 'todocoleccion':
#1

#2

I hope this helps a bit.
-Rainer

**Posted by Pete E.** 09-1-2025 08:07:20

Eagle,

Thanks for your posting and additional info.

BTW...I have a very big Olympia electric (which weighs 53 lbs). It is a variant of an SGE-50 but without any sort of paper support and no paper injector lever, as the SGE-50 usually have. Thought to be a student machine for typing classes and/or other institutional work.

To make it more confusing, the nameplate on my machine reads as " SGE A62 ". No mention of "50" at all,
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**Posted by Eagle** 13-1-2025 06:02:53

Your Olympia SGE is a nice beast, Pete!

I don't really have new informations about the letter/number code on the name plates.
At the moment I can only assume that it could be a code to distinguish between different country variants and features of the machine. This would be most important for service and spare parts. A spare parts list for code 'D51' would be different from a spare parts list 'F51'. So the service people around the world could easily find the right part number for a broken Japanese A-key for instance. Without any country code it would be hard to find specific parts.

And at first this code could helped the workers then during production to assemble the right parts (beside other coding e.g. the very important pitch) and of course to place the right name plate on the machine according to the machine's specific production card. As we can see the name plates beside the machine type differ mostly in V/Hz and the specific country rules of electrical safety.

The pitch of the machine and the used size of the carriage could be included in the code but for the carriage size I don't think so. Sometimes the machines would be ordered by the customers with two different carriage sizes for exchange or could be extra ordered later. Therefore a code could not be exclusive for such a machine as a whole - only for the body.

As all this is only an assumption the codes could be also have an other meaning.
Let's see if we can solve this puzzle sometime.

About me:
From 1976 to 1989 I have worked at the Triumph-Adler production factory 'Adlerwerke' in Frankfurt/Germany. I had my apprenticeship there as a mechanic from 1976 to 1980. Electric type bar typewriters were produced there until 1981. After that only daisy wheel typewriters were produced there. I'm now 65 years old. I'm not a typewriter collector but I do have recently acquired a 'Triumph electric 151f' from 1978 which brings back some memories to me. I will introduce myself and my typewriter in the forum soon.

-Rainer

**Posted by Eagle** 13-1-2025 08:43:08

I forgot to emphasize that in the most cases the number from the code does in fact represent the actual machine type number SGE nn. In contrast your SGE A62 may be an exceptionally odd numbering of a SGE A50 variant. Confusing to me. At least the letters seems to be somewhat consistent to the country the typewriters were delivered. Except for the letter 'F' on the name plate of the Spanish machines. Not very transparent. My search today on French classifieds and the internet itself produced no hits of a French SGE name plate photo - sigh.
At least in 1978 it seems that there was no machine type '62' known at least in Germany. Excerpts from the German third party office machine directory 'Büromaschinen Lexikon' (found in the Internet Archive):

**Posted by Eagle** 13-1-2025 09:47:55

Additional examples of machines and corresponding name plates found in German classified ads:

SGE 30 D1

SGE 35 D51 (same code as in post #4 above)

SGE D 52

SGE 45 (no additional code)

So the general type of naming and coding is somewhat obscure and not constant. Maybe the guys at Olympia changed their mind over time as it was in some way nescessary. I don't know.

**Posted by Pete E.** 14-1-2025 10:50:04

There was even an SGE-60 (electric)...
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