Some photos in the process of cleaning up the black wooden case of my 1949 Smith-Corona Clipper which are suggestive of methods one might attempt at restoring their own versions.
Near the right side of the handle you can see the white liquid paper spill on the case which cleaned up quickly.All the metal fittings on this case were this bad and needed some attention.Before and AfterExtreme abrasives like this brass bristle brush on a fabric covered wooden case will cause damage, so mask what you don’t want scrubbed clean..
Not factory perfect, but certainly acceptable for another 75 years of happy use.
Having surpassed the 10 typewriter mark in my collection, I felt it was time to invest in some more serious typewriter ribbon for the “fleet”. There are some purveyors charging in the range of $10-20 for typewriter ribbon (and yes! people do still sell and buy typewriter ribbon!) I’m pretty sure by buying from closer to the source that I could drop the price down significantly and potentially save the money toward repairs, new platens, or even other machines.
Naturally the first stop was Richard Polt’s site, where he lists a handful of purveyors. I’ve heard good things in general about Baco both from Richard and Joe Van Cleave as well as others in the past few months, so I took the plunge and ordered a full reel of 660 yards of nylon black/red typewriter ribbon for $65. It should keep all my machines inked for quite a while.
Given that the typical standard/universal spool will accommodate 16 yards, this should be 41.25 spools. This also brings the price down to a far more economical $1.60 per spool versus the much higher level others are charging, particularly since I generally self-wind my own ribbon onto original metal spools and don’t need the additional plastic waste. It also has the added benefit of supporting the efforts of Charlene Oesch until she decides to retire.
If you’re in the market, here are the basic details to call and place an order (she specifically doesn’t have and doesn’t want a website), but she’s definitely still in business, carrying on in the tradition of her father since at least 1949:
Baco takes both credit card and PayPal and ships within about a day via USPS in the United States.
Current offerings/pricing (subject to change):
660 yards (full reel) of nylon ribbon in black or black/red for $65
330 yards (half reel) of nylon ribbon in black or black/red for $45
550 yards of silk ribbon in black or black/red for $220
295 yards of cotton in black or black/red for $75
With some lead time, she can do other colors if necessary, though she typically doesn’t keep those in stock all the time according to our conversation today. She has the option to pretty easily do blue, green, and purple in single colored reels.
I could be in for some blue/green or purple/green ribbon, which I imagine she could pull off if anyone wanted to go in on a reel or so to make it worth the time and effort to set it up. Let me know if you’re interested. Similarly if someone wanted to split an order for silk, I could be game for that too.
Have you tried other manufacturers? Who is your favorite bulk ribbon supplier?
Now I’m off to find some grommets and a custom pair of pliers for them…
In looking at my own ’49 5 series Clipper I notice that the manual adjustment with the H 6-5-4-3-2 L lever attaches to a short spring, then a small plate, and from there to an arm attached to the universal bar. None of the settings on my machine effect any actual change because the entire assembly is loose from start to finish. Your machine in the video does much the same as I can see the spring attached to that lever hangs loose as you move from the L to the H settings.
Given the screwdriver settings you’re showing, I’m wondering if that Touch Selector is a vestigial appendage from the 4 Series days? I do notice another nearby unused arm on the universal bar with a hook-like end on it that the spring might have been attached to to provide actual tension. Unfortunately I only have a few 4 series machines to compare with (and their assemblies are dramatically different) and don’t have any other 5 series machines to see what the proper connection setting for the manual touch selector should be.
As far as I can tell, no one’s done a proper video of the manual touch selector assembly on the 5 series machines, if in fact they ever worked at all. Perhaps something to add to the list of videos to produce the next time a 5 series Smith-Corona comes through?
I already own and love a 4 series Smith-Corona Clipper, but I’ve been wanting one or more of the family of 5 series Smith-Coronas for a while. I purchased this Clipper on May 14th and received it earlier this week on Tuesday the 21st. Loving another Clipper already meant that it immediately skipped to the front of the line for repairs. I had planned on cleaning it up over the weekend, but impatience got the better of me.
I present a brown series 5 Smith-Corona Clipper with serial number 5C-102313.
All typewriters should have their own dozen red roses, n’cest pas?
Design
Smith-Corona made a modest shift in design from the late 40s series 4 models to the somewhat more modern series 5 in 1949 and throughout the 1950s. Gone were the black bodies and glass keys and in came the brown, cream, and gray bodies with plastic (mostly) green keys. Still in was the generally rounded and compact body. The shift marked, for me at least, the pinnacle of Smith-Corona engineering and manufacturing in the typewriter space. I do like the more modern design and brighter colors of the 6 series machines, but the build quality lost a little something, particularly with the introduction of more plastic into the 60s and 70s.
The broad line of series 5 models included the Clipper, Sterling, and Silent-Super models which had slight variations between them which also differentiated them in price as well. By 1957, the Clipper and Sterling both had 84 keys while the Silent-Super had 88 keys. The Sterling and Silent-Super also added an adjustable paper guide on the paper table, a line retainer, a retractable paper support behind the paper table, and a tabulator. The Silent-Super at the top of the line also included both tab set and clear keys (the Sterling had tabs, but they were manual), paper fingers, and a platen release latch along with an interchangeable platen. I’ve heard colloquially (but not seen documentation) that the Silent-Super also came with a softer platen to make it quieter, but with hardening over time, this feature has been nullified as a means of differentiating these models now. In addition to the tab set/clear keys, the Silent-Super’s additional two keys were generally the “1/!” and “+/=” in the top row.
Tom Hanks thought that this series of machines was the bees knees and said so in the documentary California Typewriter (2016):
Overall Condition
I bought the typewriter in an online auction. Photos of this particular machine made it look to be in salvageable condition, but the site/seller didn’t provide any other details. With a bargain basement price, I jumped hoping that I would be able to make the best of the machine, and if not it would be a nice learning experience and make a useful parts machine.
The exterior of the machine was in pretty good condition with only one or two minor scuffs, but it did need a serious scrub down. Given that it was brown, doing before and after photos seemed useless, but a lot of dirt and grime certainly came off in the washing process of the shell. I did a quick test on the interior with Scrubbing Bubbles which worked out well before cleaning the entire body.
Almost all of the keys were sticky and several were frozen solid (I suspect that perhaps someone used some WD-40 when they shouldn’t have?) The “C” key was not only frozen, but had been bent down on the keyboard and required some gentle forming to bring it back in line with the others. It took two rounds of mineral spirits on the segment along with a toothbrush and working the keys to get all the typebars moving like they should again.
I wasn’t super happy with the type on the initial test page, so I made some minor tweaks to the ring and cylinder followed by an on foot and motion adjustment to line the upper and lower case faces properly. The shift and shift lock fortunately worked as expected.
The touch control didn’t seem to be doing anything useful and upon checking, I discovered that the spring mechanism and linkage are loose at both ends of the settings. Not seeing any way to remedy what I was seeing, I went looking for adjustment advice online. That was a strike out, but I did find a useful video by Phoenix Typewriter which detailed an adjustment of three screws where the body of the typewriter meets the keyboard. Making the adjustment required removing the last panel of the body exterior I hadn’t already, so I took it off (and cleaned it) and adjusted things to make the touch a tad lighter and moved on. I have a theory about the old touch control being vestigial, but it’ll require some research or a service manual to verify.
This Clipper came with a 16 page manual which Richard Polt has already archived at his site.
Based on the serial numbers in the TypewriterDatabase, the beginning serial number in December of 1949 was 5C-122567, so I can only guess that mine was manufactured late in 1949 before the beginning of December. This means that this Autumn, my new clipper will celebrate its 75th birthday. I also seem to be the owner of the second oldest 5 series Clipper listed in the typewriter database presently.
The rubber on the feed rollers is in reasonable shape and isn’t flattened. The platen is almost rock hard with only a tiny amount of “give” left and may be the last part I’ll fix by sending it off to J. J. Short Associates. With this final tweak, the machine should be in good enough shape for the next 50-75 years of its life.
Keys
The green plastic keys on the ’49 Clipper are a major change from the chrome and glass keys of the prior year’s model. The plastic seems to be double shot so that the lighter green plastic of the lettering is integral to the key and not simply printed on the keytops. The majority of the 48 keys are dark green with light green keys used for the backspace (arrow pointing right on the left side), shift, shift lock, and margin release keys (“M-R” on the right side), and a milk chocolate brown key for the spacebar, which runs roughly the length of the bottom row of 10 keys.
Of particular note with respect to my particular model, I’ve got a Dutch Norwegian keyboard layout which includes the “Æ/æ”, “Ø/ø”, and “Å/å” keys. The inclusion of these which displaces the traditional “, ,”, “. .” and the “: ;” key respectively. The usual “? /” key is replaced with a “: .”. There are two unmarked green keys on the upper right of the keyboard next to the number 0 and letter P which comprise the “/ %” and “- ”” (the later for diaresis, I think, but someone might correct me). This means that the keyboard has two keys for the % symbol. Lost altogether are the usual “1/4 1/2” and “@ ¢” keys. There’s also no semi-colon, but the ever-creative and type-limited typist might remedy this with a colon, backspace, and comma. It’s closest to the Norwegian Keyboard No. 1045 from the Smith-Corona Keyboard catalog from 1968. It’s not too far off of the Danish Keyboard No. 1047 though the Danish lacks the Å.
Other Functionality
As is typical of most Smith-Coronas of this period, there is a bichrome selector with a stencil setting. The ribbon has an auto-reverse as well as a manual switch on the left side of the machine by the keyboard.
The unit includes the famous segment shift “Floating Shift”. There isn’t a traditional paper bail which appears in later versions of the Clipper, but this design incarnation does have two adjustable paper fingers as well as two card fingers which are integral to the typing point. (By the late 50s, paper bails were standard and paper fingers were only found on the higher end Silent-Supers.) Left and right adjustable margin stops are at the back of the paper table by way of sliding chrome tabs. Being a Clipper, this machine has no tabulator though this functionality was seen on the Sterling and Silent-related models.
As was the case with the prior 4 series, there is a permanent variable spacing mechanism actuated by a pulled knob on the left side of the platen.
On the bottom of the right side of the carriage is the same carriage centering lever as the prior 4 series model which is helpful for storing the machine in its carrying case; there is no carriage lock.
Next to the carriage return on the left side of the carriage is a line selector for single, double and triple spacing settings.
Case
The wooden case covered with black fabric and spring loaded hinges are almost identical to my 1948 Clipper. The internal metal hardware is slightly different and includes two metal brackets in the middle of the case where my prior version had wooden blocks nailed in.
Sadly, as ever seems to be the case, there was no included key. I suppose I’m going to have to figure out a way to do a 3D printed version of the key for my Smith-Corona cases.
For more images of the case, see the linked post referenced above.
It’s only vaguely visible in the photo, but someone has written a name and address in large pencil script on the inside top of the case. It roughly looks to me like John Stramsvåg, Jh Vigegl 9, Bergen, Norway. I’m presuming it’s the name of a prior owner, though I got the machine from Orange County, California.
Typeface Sample
This machine has got an elite face with 12 characters per inch. Again, there are several Norwegian-specific keys.
Sound
The bell on this rings 8 spaces before the left margin stop setting.
Here’s a sound sample of inserting an index card, writing a sentence, the bell, and a return on the 1949 Smith-Corona Clipper:
The traditional collective noun for a group of typists is a “pool”, but this just doesn’t seem as creative or entertaining as many collective nouns can potentially be. As a typewriter collector it would be more fun to have a clever collective noun for a group of typists at a type-in. Similarly it would be nice to have a name for a collection of typewriters themselves.
So toward this end I thought I’d brainstorm for a moment to make a few lists of potential ideas for both. If you’ve got ideas, please add them to the comments. There’s no need to try to come up with an “official” collective noun as use in daily life, writing, and throughout the typosphere will ultimately determine a winner through actual usage. Some words are double-listed as they could refer to either.
What do you call your collection?
Potential Collective Nouns for Typewriters
Radiance
Tabulation
Segment (no one’s every done collecting, are they?)
Sheaf
Clatter
Flourish
Sounder
Chatter
Ream
Basket
Font
Aureole (for the Smith-Corona enthusiasts)
Roost (especially when stored and displayed on shelves)
Parenthesis
Return
Potential Collective Nouns for Typists
Pool (traditional)
Claque
Vibration
Riot
Mayhem
Commotion
Symphony
Exclamation
Shift
Chattering
Touch
Drumming
Sonority
Tumult
Thriving
Applause
Manual
Carriage
Clatter
What could we be? Are we a vibration of typists? Maybe we’re a thriving of typists? A Touch of Typewriter Collectors? Please add your ideas to the list below…
Variable line spacer surgery and some clean up on the 1950 Remington All-New.
The Remington All-New wasn’t on my typewriter collection list until I ran across it randomly in the typewriter database where I fell in love with some of the photos. Then only days later, I had the opportunity to pick one up out of New Mexico for a terrifically under-valued $21. I’m currently in the midst of cleaning it up a bit, but this may be one of the most beautiful machines I’ve ever seen. Given the similarities to the Remington Quiet-Riter, which I already enjoy, it was a no-brainer acquisition. I don’t think I could have designed a typewriter to pair with my McDowell & Craig Executive Tanker desk if I had tried.
Design
The Remington All-New sits in the cusp between the shiny black typewriters of the 1940s and the industrial crinkle-painted 1950s and 60s portable American machines. The sleek gunmetal gray and curving lines are just stunning to me.
The rounded hood of the machine reminds me of the streamlined silhouette of Henry Dreyfuss’ 1936 design of New York Central Railroad’s streamlined Mercury train. This is underlined as I also own a boxy 1949 Henry Dreyfuss-designed Royal Quiet De Luxe which was first released in 1948.
Given that Remington only manufactured this typewriter from 1949 into 1952 before releasing the very popular and ubiquitous Remington Quiet-Riter in 1950, and the similar but somewhat less ubiquitous Letter-Riter and Office-Riter models which all ran into the early 1960s, it seems like the shifts in the model over the first year (1949-1950) were a live engineering test for these later models. There are lots of subtle little changes in all the documented models of the All-New over the first year including in the cases. My particular model has an interesting tin-y sound on occasion and has old cream-colored masking tape on all the internal metal panels and one black taped section on the hood. Some of the versions I see in the typewriter database have two black patches of tape, presumably for some level of soundproofing. Later models of the All-New go from flat paint to the ubiquitous crinkle paint of typewriters in the ’50s and ’60s. This makes me wonder if engineers discovered that this particular thick paint treatment helped to dampen the sound of these typewriters in addition to the felt which was often glued into the ribbon cover portions of most typewriters in this time frame.
Overall condition
My particular typewriter, received on 2024-05-23, is in great exterior condition with respect to those I’ve seen in the database. There are certainly some scrapes and scuffs, but these are also easier to see on flat painted metal. The case certainly has seen better days.
The serial number AT-1997444 places the manufacture in February of 1950 based on data from the typewriter database. The “T” in the “AT” portion of the serial number indicates that the machine includes a tabulator, which not all of this line did. This means that next February 2025, my machine will celebrate it’s 75th (or diamond) birthday.
Mine came with only one original Remington ribbon core (ring) and one ribbon cover. The matching set were missing, but a prior enterprising owner had tied the (now dried) black ribbon into the auto-reverse mechanism on the left hand side to jury-rig the ribbon set up. Fortunately I have an extra spool sitting around, though I’ve opted to use a plastic universal spool with a removable core to be able to properly spool up new ribbon (blue/green bichrome) onto it.
The machine internally was in broadly good shape, but needed some cleaning. The segment and typebars required two rounds of treatment with mineral spirits to get the sticky keys working properly. It wasn’t nearly as dusty as other machines I’ve gotten with similar vintage.
I’m still not quite sure what to do with the white masking tape on all the internal portions of the machine’s panels, so I’m leaving them at present. Given their placement (everywhere!), I’m reasonably sure that they were all put on in the factory.
In taking apart the carriage to give it and the platen and rollers a good inspection and cleaning, I noticed the variable line spacer was a bit sticky, so I cleaned the mechanism out and lubricated it a bit before putting it all back together.
The bichrome lever is missing its original gray plastic finger cap, something that seems somewhat common in the All-New. Perhaps I can swap with one from the margin sliders which are hiding underneath the paper table?
The type and alignment were all in good order, so I didn’t need to effect any changes there.
I’m terribly tempted to strip and refinish the exterior shell just for fun, but it’s in such good condition, I’ll let it slide for the moment. It seems like a great machine to potentially plate with chrome (or silver, gold, or even platinum). I’m also half tempted to do a dark matte blue similar to the sort of scheme I’ve seen on some cars recently (Tesla comes to mind).
The case is in far worse condition and crying out for restoration of some sort. More on that below.
Keys
The 1950 Remington All-New typewriter has 50 hefty gray keys with doubleshot plastic so that light yellow plastic indicates the key functions. There are both left and right shift keys as well as shift locks. The margin release (labeled “M.R.) is on the top right and the backspace (labeled with a right facing arrow) is on the top left. There is also a right side Tab key opposite the tab set/clear lever which is on the far left side of the keyboard. The right side also has a select lever with labeled 1, 2, and 3 settings for the key pressure control. The spacebar runs the full length of the bottom row of ten keys.
Other Functionality
The carriage has both left and right release levers. There’s a variable line spacer button in the center of the left platen knob and a related line locating lever for making it easier to do sub and super-script while keeping the line spacing the same. There’s a switch for single and double spacing. The carriage also has a traditional paper bail with two rubber rollers. The typing point includes a permanent card finger on the right hand side. The ribbon vibrator has two vertical posts with metal pivots which trap the ribbon in what is Remington’s quick ribbon changer set up (one of the easiest methods of changing ribbon I’ve seen).
There’s a tabulator included with a tab key on the right side of the keyboard and a switch on the left hand side of the keyboard for easily setting or clearing tabs. These work like the later “Miracle Tabs” of later Remingtons, but this model isn’t labeled with that feature name. Margin stops are manually set with sliders hiding underneath the paper table. Sadly there’s a small metal tab in the middle of the carriage rail which prevents the setting of margins all on the right or the left, which becomes an issue when attempting to set both margins on the right hand side with index cards in vertical orientation. This can be remedied by centering any paper in the middle of the platen for margin settings.
There are shift keys on both the left and right as well as shift locks on both sides as well. The machine has a segment shift to decrease finger fatigue. It’s not as light as some of my Royals or Smith-Coronas, but it may improve a bit with some cleaning.
The All-New has the traditional Remington portable auto-reverse ribbon switches from the mid-century in addition to a manual switch on the front left side between the hood and the keyboard. Opposite this is the traditional blue/white/red switch for the bichrome and stencil settings. A labeled (1, 2, 3) variable touch setting lever is also to be found on the right side of the keyboard. It seems to be attached properly and functioning on my machine.
The ribbon cover/hood is hinged on both sides near the carriage and has a clever gravity-based set of hooks which limits how far it opens to prevent it crashing into the carriage. I think it’s a better design than the later method on my 1957 Quiet-Riter which I don’t like as well.
Missing from this model, but available on later Remingtons is a paper guide for more easily inserting and aligning paper.
Case
This machine came with a wooden case covered with yellow and brown striped fabric. Sadly it’s fairly stained and the fabric is beginning to peel off of the bottom of the case. Given the stained condition of the fabric, this may be a good candidate for removing the fabric and replacing it. I’ve not done this sort of restoration before, so it may make an interesting experiment. Before doing that, I might try an experiment to see if I can steam clean it, particularly since the peeling parts are generally intact and I might be able to glue them back down. The original fabric does have a nice “dapper” feeling
The interior green fabric is heavily worn and has a few places which are completely worn through.
The back of the bottom of the case has two metal tabs into which the typewriter fits and there are two metal lever locks at the front of the case. All of these seem to be in proper working order.
The external fittings seem to be in pretty good shape considering their age. Alas, as ever seems to be my lot in life, there was no key to the case’s lock.
Based on other examples of the cases I’ve seen in the Typewriter Database, there was a prior variation of the case which had a press button, but the design was such that it generally scratched up the front metal bar of the machine just in front of the spacebar. Apparently that wasn’t the best design in the long run. It bears noting that the size and general design of my particular 1950 case is almost exactly that of my 1957 Remington Quiet-Riter, so obviously the change in form factor was deemed more desirable from a use and engineering perspective. The change was also solid enough that Remington continued it for nearly a decade.
Typeface Sample
This machine has a pica typeface with 10 characters per inch. The machine has a bichrome switch as well as a stencil setting. It bears noting that the % and ¢ on this machine are simply divine. They make me want to do more calculations on the percentage of small change.
Sound
Here’s a sound sample of inserting a sheet of paper, aligning it writing a sentence, the bell, and a return on the 1950 Remington All-New:
Photo Gallery
Most of the photos on this page are “before” photos, so please “pardon the dust” and grime.
A full reel of 660 yards of black and red nylon bichrome typewriter ribbon just landed on my doorstep in the morning mail from Baco Ribbon. Who’s up for a type-in in the Los Angeles area?
Phoenix Typewriter from YouTube
![White index card with the following quote typed onto it in blue elite typeface: If I had to keep only one typewriter, if I had to get rid of them all and only had one left... There is a version of this Smith-Corona which is the the Silent Smith-Corona. [...] Somewhere around whenever they started making this, the Smith Corona Silent and various other models that have the same silhouette. The rise on the keys is just almost perfect—going from an N to a Y requires almost nothing. The size of the type is not too big and not too small. But listen to the solidity of the action [types]. This is a solid, solid piece of machine. That's got beautiful highlights like the stripes here and there. The colors are good. I love the green keys. I would probably say that this with a good case would be the one typewriter I would take. And that's why it's kinda out [on my desk] right now. I rotate this one into use an awful lot. [He types: clack, clack] I confess. [clack, clack again as he types.] —Tom Hanks, in California Typewriter, 2016](https://i0.wp.com/boffosocko.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/wp-17151265045807229784091795759502.jpg?resize=660%2C440&ssl=1)
