Acquisition: 1940 Corona Zephyr Ultra-Portable Typewriter

On Friday, August 16, 2024, I picked up a dreadful looking cur from GoodWill. On Sunday, I spent several hours the afternoon and then again in the evening pulling the machine apart, cleaning all the external and internal parts and flushing it out with lacquer thinner. A quick and very light oiling and a rubdown with WD-40 to make the exterior shine later, and I’m now the proud owner of a wonderful, and sparkling little Corona Zephyr.

Design

The Corona Zephyr manufactured by L. C. Smith & Corona Co. of Syracuse, NY was produced from 1938-1941 before being superseded by the Smith-Corona Skyriter. Both the Zephyr and the Skyriter were meant to compete directly with the Hermes Baby. Meant to be used on the go, these typewriters are compact and light.

My Zephyr with full spools and the case cover on weights 8 pounds 14.7 ounces. Typical standard (desktop) typewriters of the day weighed a ponderous 30+ pounds and even the burgeoning market of portable machines usually clocked in in the low 20s. In it’s case, the Zephyr measures 11″ x 12″ 2 11/16″. These were the OG laptop machines.

Overall condition

This machine has the appearance of having once been at least moderately used. There were some bits of paint knocked off the corners (common with portables of this size) and the machine had more than it’s fair share of dirt and grime inside. Fortunately it was full of eraser shavings like my Smith-Corona Skyriter was.

Based on the way several screws were inserted, I suspect that the machine had been serviced at least once in its life. But it was definitely used well and put up wet. My guess is that in the late 70s or early 80s, as with many typewriters, this was put into storage and forgotten about until it was donated and made its way into my stewardship. Somewhere in that journey it was housed back-down in its case and exposed to some level of moisture causing some moderate rusting on the bottom of the case and to the back of the typewriter. I spent some time removing the worst of of the rust, but wasn’t overly aggressive on it. With the modest treatment, I’ve hopefully arrested most future damage.

In addition to the rust, I had to repair the ribbon vibrator which was bent out in front of the typing guide, and I’ll have to address the ribbon pick up moving to the left which isn’t working. The model came with broken 2 inch universal plastic spools and dried out ribbon which will need to be replaced with the correct smaller spools.

Richard Polt has posted a contemporaneous manual for the Zephyr typewriter for those who’d like to see what originally came with the machine. My favorite is that the manual appears to be typewritten. It has all the keystone markings of a pre-WWII manual with sparce diagrams and a wall of text.

Keys

The keyboard follows the general format of Smith-Corona’s American No. 20A set up. As was the case for most pre-World War II typewriters, the Zephyr came with round glass keys. The machine has 4 banks of keys which had become standard by mid-century. With 46 keys, the observant typist will notice that there are no shift lock or margin release keys. The shift lock can be effectuated by pushing down either of the shift keys and then moving them to the side where their metal levers can be “locked” into a metal slot under the key lever. If there’s a way to easily release the margin lock, I’ve not found it.

Other functionality

Obviously, it’s light weight and portability means that corners were cut including features like margin release, tabulation and niceties like touch control or a paper guide. Presumably this was meant for writers, journalists, and students on the go rather than accountants.

The machine features a carriage shift, which is quick and light, particularly because of the small size and weight of the platen and carriage.

The Zephyr doesn’t have the typical bichrome settings, but only features monochrome functionality. However, it’s still capable of doing stencils. While many typewriters have a specific mechanical setting for stencils, they can all generally do stencils by unhooking the ribbon from the ribbon vibrator. It bears mentioning that the ribbon vibrator here is effectuated by an unconventional method in the form of a metal bar which is attached at the left side which arcs up and down rather than a central mechanism as seen on the majority of modern machines which only moves vertically.

The Zephyr uses the typical 1/2 inch wide ribbon, but requires a smaller ribbon spool of 1 3/4 inches in diameter rather than the universal 2 inch spool. This gives the writer closer to 12 feet of ribbon rather than 16, but is still very functional.

To my knowledge, these machines came with body-colored spool covers. Sadly, like many I’ve seen in the wild, mine are missing.

One of the clever features is a miniscule carriage return lever. (As a point of comparison, I think the “ice cream scoop” return lever on the Royal Empress standard may weigh more than this entire machine.) It’s a tiny cupped nub the size of a thumb or finger tip which can be used to press it in to do the line space and then slide the carriage back home. To save on weight and engineering, the machine only has a single space ratchet, but it does have a switch for allowing variable platen spacing for filling in forms. The paper bail is also a simple metal arm, which means it’s not great with thicker card stocks like post cards or index cards, though it will work passably with a single card finger next to the typing point. One would not be happy doing lots of index card work on this machine.

One of the curious features of the machine is that it doesn’t have a traditional universal bar to engage the escapement. Instead there’s a thin, but sturdy simple wire right at the typing point that is hit by the typebars when typing. Pressing this bar in trips the escapement and moves the carriage to the next space.

Also particular to this machine is the “jacket” or exterior enclosure into which the typewriter chassis slides for protection. The machine is so small and tight that getting it into and out of the case can be a bit trying compared to its close cousin the Skyriter. To get the Zephyr out, one removes six screws and two small nuts to free the rear panel from the jacket. Then there are four screws which hold the jacket on to the chassis—two on the sides at the carriage and two in the keyboard near the shift keys. Then one needs to press down the top row of keys to carefully wiggle the unit out. However, the felt on the bottom of the jacket can impede the sliding of the metal. As a result one is best advised to insert a few thicker (index card weight or heavier) pieces of paper between the metal chassis and the felt and another between the top of the case and the keys to ensure they don’t get caught or scratched up. When re-inserting, similar care must be taken for the felt as well as for the (now brittle) plastic feet.

Kirk Jackson of Nashville Typewriter has a copy of the Corona Zephyr Servicing and Adjustment Methods manual which Theodore Munk has published on his blog. The manual lists among its six recommended tools, tool number “S. T. 1243 Keyboard Depresser (for Jacket removal and replacement)”. It’s a simple piece of cardboard for which they charged 25¢. Incidentally, Rev. Munk has also re-published a 1954 Smith-Corona Carriage Shift Portable Parts Manual – Corona 3, 4, Junior, Zephyr and Skyriter which contains lots of diagrams for those who might benefit from it.

Case

As also seen on early models of the Smith-Corona Skyriter, the Zephyr has a thin metal case that has two metal prongs which fit into the rear of the typewriter and then comes down over the typewriter and clicks into place with two metal spring bars with buttons that depress from the front of the case. It’s a simple and no frills case/cover, but far more effective and functional than some of the similar integral covers of typewriters in the late 60s and 70s. It’s not present on my Skyriter, but this case does have a very fine velvet-like interior which I suspect was somehow sprayed into the inside of the case as it doesn’t seem like it’s fabric glued into it.

Typeface Sample

The typeface on my Zephyr is Smith-Corona’s ubiquitous Pica No. 1 face with 10 characters per inch and types with 6 vertical lines per inch. A type sample from my machine with an overly wet, new ribbon appears below.

Sound

Here’s a sound sample of inserting a sheet of paper, aligning it writing a sentence, the bell, and a return with more typing on my 1940 Corona Zephyr:
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