Serial Number: 46-0171787
Olympia Pica No. 12 typeface, 10 pitch, 2.6m/m, 6 lines/inch, keyset tabulator, half-space spacing, vertical spacing, portable, bichrome, segment shift, American keyboard, 44 keys, 88 characters, white and gray plastic body with grey hood and gray plastic keys with white characters
Manufactured in Wilhelmshaven, Germany
I acquired this at thrift for $21.95 on 2026-05-10 for Mother’s Day in immaculate condition! It’s as if someone used it to type up a few essays then put it in the case for 49 years. Other than some minor wear, this may be the singularly cleanest typewriter I’ve ever purchased. As my first typebar electric Olympia, I was so looking forward to taking it apart and giving it a full clean, oil, and adjust, but beyond wiping off some exterior dust, this machine really needs no work. I’m both disappointed and elated at the same time.
“Now listen to this.
The gentle and soothing lullaby of a piece of machinery so perfect –”
—Frank Navasky, YOU’VE GOT MAIL (Warner Bros., 1998)
Serial Number: 8-12-512178E
Elite (12 CPI), 6 lines/inch, bichrome, keyset tabulator, typebar hood, 12" carriage, carriage shift, American keyboard, 42 keys, 84 characters, foundry marks: alpha: backwards "2 slash", numeric: "8", in black enamel with glass keys, manufactured in the U.S.A.
My first ever Woodstock. Acquired via thrift for $50 on 2026-05-08. Possibly a bit more expensive than it might have otherwise been, but the key rings are in stunning shape, and the work to polish them is easily worth several hundred in labor! The decals are also in exceptional condition. Aside from some cosmetic damage to the typebar hood, this machine is in exceptionally great cosmetic condition and will be even more so following a full polish of the body and the brights.
Quick initial work
Naturally it needs a new ribbon, but it’s got enough ink left for a quick typesample.
A fast dusting and a preliminary scrub of the carriage rails and a few other parts with isopropyl alcohol and it’s ready for some basic work. Primarily the return lever and the margin sets were very gummy, while the keylevers had some pretty good action without any attention. (Someone really loved this machine.)
The carriage return lever needed some forming so that it no longer scrapes on the typebar hood.
A quick cleaning of the slugs which were in reasonable shape. List of work to be done:
The tabulator needs some adjustment to work properly as the tab mechanism is sitting a bit high and causes the carriage to scrape.
It’s going to need a ring and cylinder adjustment so that it’s not damaging the platen anymore, though the platen is so hard that it needs replacement anyway.
The rubber feet are usable, but need replacement.
The space key also may need some timing attention, but perhaps the slow symptoms will disappear with a full cleaning?
The rulers (5!) are slightly out of adjustment.
Full clean, oil, and adjust A day’s worth of cleaning and some modest adjustments and this should be a fantastic little machine.
Interesting features
I love the fact that this has some interesting paper fingers. They don’t seem to be well-suited to index card work however.
The unique ribbon reverse mechanism (a small metal button) is adjustable on either side.
It doesn’t have an individual tab clear button, but, in lieu, has a clear all tabs lever.
I love the design of the ribbon color selector which requires pulling a spring-loaded button out to switch colors—no accidental color changes here.
Rather than a traditional “margin release” button it has a “line lock release”, but like the Olympia SG series, it only locks when typing characters, but will blow past the margins if using the spacebar.
Rather than a more common line space selector, this has a knurled knob that needs to be pulled out and set with a pin-type mechanism. This also means that the selector can’t accidentally change its setting for any reason.
The Woodstock No. 5 is an early carriage shift standard
The typebar hood is made of some sort of early plastic and slides onto the top of the machine. While it’s borne the brunt of most of the machine’s cosmetic damage, it is easy to remove for typing “naked”. It goes on quickly to help protect the internals from ambient dust.
According to the TWdB page for the Woodstock, the 8-12 prefix on the serial number indicates a 12″ carriage (the width of the rubber portion of the platen). There isn’t any extant detail to indicate what the suffix “E” in the serial number means, though one might presume the elite or 12 pitch typeface?
Serial Number: 11-6139621
Underwood Pica typeface, 10 pitch, 6 lines/inch; bichrome, segment shift, American keyboard, 42 keys, 84 characters
in black crinkle paint with black plastic keys and Art Deco chrome trim
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
Acquired at Goodwill Southern California for $20.28 including tax on 2026-05-06. Needs a full clean, oil, and adjust, but not in generally bad shape. Two or three mechanical issues to sort out, but it’s got some new ink and a quick wipe down/dusting has helped immensely.
I’m in love with the Art Deco chrome styling. This was manufactured sometime between January and June 1947.
Acquired via thrift on April 10, 2026. It finally fills my itch to have an italic typeface for use in personal correspondence. It’s in spectacular starting condition though a bit gamey, but this should clean up nicely. It immediately needed a bit of forming on the carriage lock and a new ribbon, but it’s generally ready to be in the regular rotation.
30 drawers of filing space for 3x5 inch index cards.
Modular set up in 4 pieces including two sections of 5 columns of drawers in three rows each.
Assembled dimensions: 33″ wide x 17 3/8″ deep and stands 43 1/2″ tall.
Primarily composed of quarter sawn oak.
I’ve expanded my index card database storage by 30 new drawers of 13 3/4″ of space each.
This model appears to be a Gaylord Bros. card index, but is missing explicit badging. It has the appropriate size for the modular Gaylord system and seems to be missing a few pieces including some of the dovetail pieces which would typically hold the unit securely together. Sadly, it’s also missing all the card rods. The top seems to have been added from another unit and has a large crack in it. A few of the drawers need some minor nail and/or gluing attention.
It’s definitely in rougher condition than my first Gaylord card index. The piece needs a fair amount of refurbishment work. The stain has gone a tad to the green side, but I’m on the fence about stripping, sanding, and re-staining the whole thing. I am considering refurbishing one section and adding it to my primary Gaylord cabinet as I think the two would match up very well.
It’s in functional and usable shape, so I spent a couple hours blowing it out with my air compressor, cleaning it off, fixing a few nails, and giving it a much needed coat of furniture polish.
I was happy to pick it up for a price tag of $200 (or $6.66 per drawer), though it may have been a bit much for something in this condition compared to prior purchases. The seller did mention that they had more than six interested parties at this price within just two hours of listing, so I suppose I’m lucky that I saw it and responded as quickly as I did. Of course within that timeframe it was in my vehicle and headed home.
The base has a property tag from the city of Arcadia, but the owner has had it for the past 30 years and was using it primarily for baseball card storage.
New Grand Total
Recalculating from my collection of card indexes, I think this new cabinet brings my total up to 10 “boxes” with a total of 107 drawers featuring almost 160 linear feet of index card storage space. This comes out to the possibility of storing 265,475 index cards, with a cost per drawer hovering around $11.00 and still dropping.
I’ve slowed way down on acquisitions in my typewriter collection, but when I saw this magnificent exemplar with Art Nouveau decoration pop up at thrift, I could not resist. For a near complete exemplar, it seemed to be better priced than most of the market that I looked at before purchasing.
I suppose that perhaps my next chapter of collecting might be some older machines? I don’t see them out in the wild as frequently, so perhaps it’ll keep my collection from growing too rapidly. This one certainly qualifies and along with my Corona 3 is now one of two actual antique typewriters in my collection which is mostly focused on vintage mid-40s to the late 70s.
Shortly I’ll begin some restoration work on this lovely machine. Most of the restoration should be fairly easy after cleaning, but the majority of the work will be polishing the metal, most of which seems to be nickel plated. It doesn’t seem to be as complex as later machines, so a full disassembly and cleaning should be easy work. If nothing else, it’ll be much shinier when cleaned up than it is now.
I didn’t expect it at all given the age of the machine, but Richard Polt has an instruction manual/parts list on his site.
I’ve noted that the typewriter journal ETCetera has a few mentions of Odells as well. The December 2002, Issue No. 60 of ETCetera lists the rarity and desirability rankings of the Odell No. 4 as 5.0 and 5.5 respectively.
Initial Condition of My Odell No. 4
Against the odds, my typewriter came with the original box, but the paint/labeling on it is faint as to be difficult to read. I can easily make out the manufacturer’s name “Farquhar & Albrecht” on the front of the box, but I think it fully reads:
Farquhar & Albrecht
[undiscernable]
School and College Textbooks
378-388 Wabash Ave.
Chicago
Later boxes eschewed the textbook reference and put the Odell Typewriter name on the side of the box instead, so I’m positing that mine is a slightly earlier version of the No. 4. The top of the box faintly reads “Handle Carefully”. Since there aren’t any examples of boxes on the Typewriter Database, I’ll do some measurements and photos for those who might want to do recreations in their restoration work. It’s a fairly simple dovetail box with a sliding lid.
My Odell No. 4 is missing some of the inking assembly including the inker roller and spring (part #29). It’s probably not a huge loss as I would expect that I’d have to replace the roller anyway to have the machine function properly. I’m going to have to fashion some sort of replacement as I imagine a parts machine will be hard (or expensive) to come by. If anyone has photographs and precise dimensional measurements of these parts, I can have a local fabricator make something (or a handful of somethings for later replacement use or parts for others) if I can’t manage it in my own shop. Otherwise I’ll attempt to engineer some workable parts from photos, patents, and the instruction manual.
Mine has a split Celluloid Alphabet for Key Board (part #36), but I did find the missing piece in an envelope in the box. The broken piece is 5 characters long on the right side and is imminently repairable/restorable. I’ll try to make a correct scale color facsimile for the future for those who might need restoration versions in the future. This is my first X J K M V W P L Y O F U R S A T H E I N G D B C Q Z keyboard, which seems to be designed with the most frequently used letters in the alphabet in the center of the index and the less used ones like X and Z at the ends. The information theorist in me will look at the potential mathematics that got them this arrangement.
I suspect that the spring in the shift mechanism is fine, but the others all look rusty/dodgy, so I’ll either have to find replacements or fashion them so that the typewriter will work as intended.
Someone removed the bell portion on mine, but from what I can tell from a preliminary look, it appears (?) to be complete, but will take some cleaning and adjustment.
The platen has the narrowest diameter I’ve seen to date, and while not in great shape, isn’t as horrible as I would have expected it to be for it’s age. It seems solid and intact. It should be able to type well in its current condition.
In total, it’ll take a bit of work to get it working as originally intended, but I should be able to tinker around and get at least a type sample out of it. If nothing else, it is a very interesting and simple, but clever, design for an index typewriter. The nickel-plated cast steel is lovely as a decorative piece, particularly with the Art Nouveau detailing.
#TIL Smith-Corona Marchant (aka SCM) not only made typewriters, but they also manufactured index cards! They apparently had an office supplies group in Marion, Indiana.
I can’t wait to take some of these for a spin in my Sears Cutlass.
I’m really hoping this book Index to Murder is a gift of thoughtfulness and not some perverse, veiled threat.
Acquired via thrift on 2026-02-06. This machine continues my typewriter collection theme for 2026: hunting for great machines with less common typefaces. Gothic was an older word meaning san-serif. The “double” portion means that it’s two sets of capital letter forms.
(Sorry James…)
The white correction tape message typed (assuredly not by me!!) onto the platen was a sure sign this thrifted typewriter was destined for my collection.
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;
2026-01-31 Acquired at thrift for a very reasonable $70. I was really hoping to get a Modern Elite No. 66 or an Elite No. 8 as my first SG1, but finding this with a Congress Elite No. 84 typeface was a reasonably acceptable alternative, particularly in usable condition.
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.
A red typewriter for Christmas! And it was hiding the uncommon Sears Futura typeface (aka Smith-Corona Numode No. 61) for its American 88 No. 423 keyboard which also features the Change-A-Type functionality. (Sadly it’ll be a slog to try to find matching Numode typeface slugs to match, though some of my math slugs may work well.) This means that it meets my current collector’s criteria for an interesting model I don’t already have as well as an uncommon typeface.
I’ve been on the hunt for one of these for over two years and always lost out in online auctions which generally went in the range of $150-200 in part because of the hot reddish/burgundy paint job with white racing stripes and the fact that Taylor Swift used this same typewriter in her All Too Well: The Short Film.
In the last two years I’ve only seen three of these on ShopGoodwill, so they definitely don’t pop up often. There are only 5 others on the Typewriter Database. Many of the online auctions where they went for a few hundred on ShopGoodwill.com had them being relisted by flippers on eBay in the $600-800 range within two weeks with no cleaning or restoration work. I’ve seen prices for them on eBay for $1,000 and over. For comparison, similar typewriter models in the 5 and 6 series of the period would otherwise be selling in the $25-50 range in this condition. (Ultimately, I’m glad I waited.)
This one is in generally exceptional shape and works well out of the box. The shop it came from (or more likely the prior owner) was definitely on the liberal side with their lubrication. One of the two carriage release levers is broken off, which is extremely common on the 6-series models which used plastic which apparently brittled with age. I’ll give it a once over to touch up some of the dirtier parts and make some subtle adjustments. I will probably hold off on a major overhaul at the moment because it’s in such good condition. The platen is solid and plastic-y feeling. It definitely needs an upgrade on this front.
This model seems to bridge the gap between the 5 series Smith-Coronas into the 60s and the 6 series machines like the Galaxie. It’s a top-of-the-line model with the keyboard tabulator and the hood hinges up and back like the 5 series rather than sliding forward like the 6 series models. I don’t have one, but I would suspect it’s closest to the Sterling 5AX typewriter which started in 1963. It’s also got a great little paragraph indent button for use at the beginning of new paragraphs. I look forward to seeing how they implemented this feature mechanically.
Stocking stuffers anyone? Santa brought 6,000 index cards down the proverbial chimney today. Should have enough now to index all the books in the house?
