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| Royal Model OT |
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| Underwood Standard Portable |
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| Remington Portable 2 |
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| Corona Four |
The best portable typewriter available in the late 1920s, by a narrow margin, is the Underwood Standard Portable Typewriter with Standard Four Bank Keyboard. So what is the actual model name for this thing?
Both the Royal and the Underwood are actually from the 1930s, I know…but they both could have been bought in 1929.
Both the Royal and the Underwood are actually from the 1930s, I know…but they both could have been bought in 1929.
Sent from my Royal Model OT and my Underwood Standard Portable
Nice review Nick! I don't own any of these machines and also never typed on them, but I can almost feel what you mean in your comparisons.
ReplyDeleteThanks! Glad that I described them well for you at least. :)
DeleteGreat comparisons.
ReplyDeleteI do not own the model Royal or Remington mentioned although I did get to use a Remington 2. I touch type so the type bars being raised to me are a cool visual feature. Watching what I type generally causes more typos. I guess my teacher was correct: do not watch the keys, do not watch the machine or what you type. Watch the copy from which you are typing.
The biggest thing I do not like on my Underwood portable (a few years older than yours) is the one side carriage release. The manual ribbon advance I learned as a child, reach up and spin the take-up spool.
The un-handiest feature of the Underwood I must agree is the Margin release button. I find most manufacturers like to move this around and I find few with the location I like. Facit probably has the best. M-R, B-S, and Shift all grouped on the right. Now if a manufacturer would have added TAP in the same group like a Royal HH for me that would be a perfect location and combination.
Type face. I find Underwood and Olivetti both hard to beat. Then a lot of it has to do with machine age, platen and how much a machine was used.
I'd rather a machine with a paper bail too. I do not recall which have the tab things on the platen to hold the paper. They must have seemed a good idea when they were made, but many machines that had them no longer have them as they could get bent and removed and lost. Even a paper bail with out roller are better than no paper holder to hold the sheet against the platen.
The one-side carriage release is probably what I like least about Olympia SM3s. (SM4s have two but I don't have any of those) Thankfully the SM7 fixed that problem.
DeleteThe main problem I forgot to mention in the text is with the ribbon spool covers, it's impossible to advance the ribbon manually without taking one off and putting it back on (which is a bit of a task) which is the main reason why it was important to me.
I did forget something. The Royal is surely the better looking of the machines. Their wood finish is really nice. Underwoods were neat, generally Royal had them beat visually.
ReplyDeleteI'm very fond of the Alligator but I like the Wood effect Royal also. :)
ReplyDeleteGreat type-off comparison. I have neither of your top picks and both of your bottom ones, which I agree are less featureful. However, I love 'em anyway :D
ReplyDeleteI have no intention of letting any four of these go. :) They all have a place in my collection for some reason or other.
DeleteVery nice, careful comparison.
ReplyDeleteI think you're a bit hard on the Remington, but you make many good points about the Royal and Underwood. In my opinion, the Underwood has the edge in feel and precision.
From a collecting viewpoint, the Remingtons are definitely lots of fun to have though. :D It's just from a basic practicality sense that if you were only going to have one machine from that era, it wouldn't be the one I'd choose.
DeleteGreat comparison! Though if the looks were the only criteria the Corona is no.1 for me here :)
ReplyDeleteMy cute little red Corona 4 is one of the very few I keep on display, but nearly never type with it.
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