Serial number: 7-139497 (body), 8-178336 (carriage);
Congress Elite No. 84 typeface, 11CPI, 2.3m/m pitch, 46 keys, 92 characters
bichrome+, tabulator, paper injector, line spacing: 1, 1 1/2, 2, 2 1/2, 3; spaced typing;
Initial condition assessment
This 70 year old standard typewriter is in reasonable condition, but will require a full clean/oil/adjust as well as the following repairs:
- left shift key broken off and key lever bent
- blow out old desiccated foam
- 5-6 sticky keys; remainder are slower than they ought to be
- broken paper support (surprise!)
- de-rust some of the internals
- replace ribbon and poorly matched spools
- recover platen
- carriage grinding on return
- new feet (old, hard, chipping)
- replace foam with new felt
- the aligning scales for the Perspex card holders aren’t functioning properly (broken or missing a spring?)
- polish keys and spacebar
- brights all need attention and polishing
Repairs on 2026-02-02
With some of the quick repairs listed below, I’ve got this machine up to the level of pretty good acceptable daily use condition. It’ll definitely be a serious member of the rotation once the C/O/A is finished. If it had a more standard typeface it might have a shot at replacing my elite Royal KMG.
- basic wipe down of dirt, dust, etc.
- fixed carriage grinding on return
- replaced spools and ribbon with nylon blue/green
- blew out old foam as well as other internal dust and cobwebs
- basic cleanout of segment to get keys unstuck and working well enough
- basic oiling of carriage rails and one or two additional spots
Typesample and Slugs
Olympia SG1 Typewriter Manual
My machine didn’t come with a manual—standard typewriters without protective cases rarely ever do. If you happen to need one for yours, Richard Polt has one in his collection: Olympia SG1 Super De Luxe Operating Instructions
General Comments
As someone who uses a lot of index cards, this seems a spectacular machine. My one immediate issue is that I wish the paper injector went down a few more notches as I have to roll it back up a few lines to get to an acceptable starting line on my index card.
Typewriter Resources Some of my favorite typewriter information and resources sites: Typewriter Database Print Repair Manuals Digital [.pdf] Repair Manuals Richard Polt’s Classic Typewriter site…
@chrisaldrich what a freaking beautiful typeface
Nice find! I’ve been keeping my eyes open for one of the SG line. Thank you for sharing!
Nice! I’ve got a late model SM3 (Orange dot). Types like butter 🙂
The paper injector travel is adjustable, the dial with numbers on the right side of the carriage will adjust how far the injector, uh, injects.
That is one of my grail machines. Congrats!
Nevermind the typewriter, where did you get the card catalog drawers?!?!
Clean!
Nice
Chris! Congratulations Dude! My Ollie will have a friend at the next SoCal Type-In. I am seriously very happy for you, I know you have been looking for an SG1 for a while now. How do you finding the typing action? I know you are still working on some issues but I would imagine you will have some sense of it by now.
This is a stellar find, congrats!
My SG3-L has Elite #87, which is the 12 pitch version of the 11 pitch elite #8. I don’t believe #8 was available on the SG3. What I have is pretty much as good as it gets on my own terms… but if I were to find a reasonable SG3 with Congress Elite #88, that might nudge it out.
Nice machine, nice pad, nice index card drawer
Seeing the typing is a thing of beauty. Wow.
And that is a gorgeous card catalog….love it all!
Oh my gosh that dark blue ribbon. Chef’s kiss.
Over the weekend I made a major push on beginning restoration of the Olympia SG1 standard typewriter I picked up this past month. One of…
This is an excellent write up – thank you for sharing. And this made me check – I have 3 SG1s – two of them are completely missing these washers and the third that I haven’t spent much time on has one that is completely crushed and one that is replaced with a piece of cork. As you point out on the SM machines these washers can when they deteriorate prevent the machine from working – on my SG1s I have had no issues and as they work just fine I never checked these washers. So now I have to put them in. It could seem that all SG1 machines need some care in this area.
Over the weekend I stripped down my 1956 Olympia SG1 and cleaned all the body panels thoroughly. I had taken out all the old foam,…
Thank you for the excellent write up. I’m replacing these bushings on an SM3 and I was also looking for something better than the flat rubber washers, since those are clearly not OEM.
I found a similarly sized rubber bushing at my local Ace Hardware. Interestingly, my local Ace did not carry Hillman, but I found a bushing that had all of the same dimensions except that the ID was 5/32″ instead of 3/16″.
Thanks again!