26 May 2011

Escaped bulls, Typing books, Underwoods & Remingtons


Typed on my Underwood Standard

6 comments:

  1. I hope to Gawd the guy's last name truly is Phlegm.

    I like the idea of naming the moon after a man.

    And my last random comment: Quiet-Riters can be good looking if you repaint them. I've done it about 5 times! (Can't you save the parts machine in some corner of your basement? It will be handy someday.)

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  2. I kinda think Quiet-riters looks sort of like old mailboxes or trash cans, but the one I got a couple days ago is a very nice, smooth typer. Far better than any other Remington I've ever tried.

    You oughta strip as many parts as you can (springs, screws, gears, etc.) out of your junker and stash them in little parts drawers. That way it doesn't *look* like a typewriter to your folks, but you can still keep the spare parts. :D

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  3. Dealing could be a way to get you folks on board. The 'bay (as Ted would have it) is a lottery. The very best way I have ever seen used typewriters sold was a few of Richard Milton's - including the Rose prototype for the Corona 3. His site: portabletypewriters.co.uk is great ad for potential buyers. It was a couple of years ago that I recognised one of his machines on ebay which he was selling (just like Mr Polt's recent Royal). The thing is, he'd built up a degree of historical context and provenance which gave the machines (I think one was a plain black Rem NP) the allure of museum-quality exhibits - not just junk cluttering up a shelf. So he was charging top-dollar and getting it. So I'd maybe write up a few words about the really good features (quote Ted's "...far better than any other..." maybe), take some mouth-wateringly tasty photos, post a blog page "Shop" and then make sure there's a "Read more about this typewriter" link in your eBay listing. Phrase it like you were selling a new machine. This should achieve a better return than a one-liner about how its OK but you just want rid of it. You might even to be able to leave some on "sale or return" at an antiques shop maybe? Good luck.

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  4. erm, cough, I'm one of the few who really likes the -riter series of Remingtons!

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  5. Yes it is a late model 6. I have one with the number 4755779-11. Mine has the very rare crack style ribbon advance on the right side instead of the more common knob type.

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  6. I just inherited a 4826489-14. Did my homework, and was very confused. No M mark in the serial or any of the new design features of the freshly released Master(which is supposed to start at 4800000 after no. 6 supposedly ended at 4747400). Design features are congruent with late model no. 6, and it even has "champion" on the space bar, like yours. Anyway, it seems like these late model no. 6 champions exist well past the listed end date in the database. I was excited to finally come across yours, and to have secondary confirmation from Mr. Allen. Thank you for taking the time to contribute.

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