Acquired 1958 Royal FP typewriter
Serial Number: FPE-16-66444461
16" platen, elite typeface, in Royaltone or Pearl Light Gray smooth
I’ve been wanting to score an FP for a long time. Well shipped and in generally functional shape. My first typewriter of 2025 and the first since the Eaton Fire. 

 

Acquired 1954 Smith-Corona Silent Typewriter by Smith Corona, Inc. (Goodwill)
Serial Number: 5A 458864
Pica No. 1 typeface; 6 lines/vertical inch
American No. 20A keyboard
Fifteen minutes of tinkering and this machine is imminently usable. It’ll take about a half day to clean up properly, but this is well on its way to its former glory. I should be able to turn this $25 find into a proper $350 work-a-day typewriter.
Acquired 1939 Royal Aristocrat portable typewriter by Royal Typewriter Co. Inc. (ShopGoodwill.com)
Serial Number: B-884712
Black crinkle paint, glass keys, with case.
Definitely needs a cleaning, but this may be the second or third most solid typewriter I’ve ever received right out of the box. It will be the third oldest exemplar of an Aristocrat on the Typewriter Database. This will clean up exceptionally well.

Unpacked and sitting on the floor we see an oblique view of the left side of a 1939 Royal Aristocrat typewriter

Close up on the glass keys and keyboard of a 1939 Royal Aristocrat typewriter. The paper legends are black backgrounds with yellow letters.

1939 Royal Aristocrat typewriter with hood open and featuring a close up of the basket

Focusing on the hood and carriage of a 1939 Royal Aristocrat typewriter from above. A bit dusty and dirty with flecks of correction ribbon around the typing point.

Angle down on a black dusty typewriter case for a 1939 Royal Aristocrat typewriter

1939 Royal Aristocrat typewriter black, dusty case featuring a black plastic handle and a metal clasp and lock.

View into the left rear corner of a 1939 Royal Aristocrat typewriter with the carriage moved to the right. We see the serial number in the leftmost corner.

Close up of the typing point of a 1939 Royal Aristocrat typewriter featuring lots of white speckles from a correction ribbon.

Angle down on the rear of a 1939 Royal Aristocrat typewriter. We can see a metal bar across the back which has 5 manually moveable tab stops.

White index card with simple typesample of a pica typefaced 1939 Royal Aristocrat typewriter

Acquired 1941 Smith-Corona Standard typewriter by Smith-Corona (ShopGoodwill.com)
S/N: 1C188190
Manufactured between December 1940 and December 1941. Portable typewriter with black wooden case.
This looks to be the latest of the 1C series Corona Standard flattops in the Typewriter Database. Dirty and needs restoration, but looks imminently salvageable. Can’t wait to polish this beauty!

A 1941 Smith-Corona Standard typewriter at an angle sitting on a carved wooden chest

Focus on the rear portion of a dirty 1941 Smith-Corona Standard typewriter

Focus onto the keyboard of a 1941 Smith-Corona Standard typewriter with several drunk key legends.

Acquired 1980 Brother Charger 11 Correction Typewriter by Brother (Nagoya, Japan) (ShopGoodwill.com)
A blue metal portable typewriter with black plastic keys and a black plastic case/cover.
JP-1 model, 3rd Variation.
Serial Number: C03184679 (March 1980).
It needs a serious clean out from the flecks of white out from a prior user’s use of the black and white correction ribbon that originally came with these machines. Generally in good condition given it’s age. It’ll need some work on the ribbon advance set up in both directions and is missing a shift key cap. Other than a few small niggling issues that will get fixed in the clean, oil, and adjustment process, this will be an easy machine to resurrect to like new condition.

It’ll also give me a sample machine so that I know what’s wrong with my other Brother Charger 11’s backspace mechanics, for which I think a piece is physically missing.

When I’m done cleaning it up, either this one or my other will be re-homed to someone who needs to have a typewriter.

Long view of a blue Brother Charger 11 typewriter with its black plastic case/cover standing behind it. To the left side are some gold glitter Christmas tree ornaments.

Front view down onto a Brother Charger 11 featuring a keyboard with white letters on black plastic keys.

Black plastic case on a Brother Charger 11 typewriter.

Restoring a 1950 Royal KMG Typewriter

I spent some time this past week and over the weekend beginning restoration on my 1950 Royal KMG (Keyset Magic Grey) and getting it back “on [its] feet”.

  • fixed the grinding carriage
  • formed the bent rear tabulator enclosure
  • stripped down the body and did a full flush/cleaning on interior
  • light oiling
  • repaired disconnected typebars Q and @ by shifting the fulcrum pivot wire
  • repaired issues with the shift keys
  • formed the bar on shift assembly to improve the shift response which was abominably slow even after cleaning
  • fixed tab set/clear issues
  • tightened the loose mainspring for better typing tension/response
  • got the type “on feet” and made an adjustment to the motion
  • replaced ribbon
  • adjusted the typing line
  • scrubbed and shined the exterior
  • light polish and cleaning of typebars
  • polished the brights and the glass tombstone keys (wish I had keyring pliers for doing a full job on this)
  • removed the keyrings on two keys which desperately needed cleaning and adjustment
  • ordered new rubber feet and rubber compression fittings which should arrive later this week

I’ve definitely torn this machine down much further than any other I’ve worked on before, in some part because it required some extensive work, but also just for fun. I think after this I’m ready to completely disassemble an entire machine and rebuild it from scratch. Maybe on a Royal KMM or Royal X?

I’ve done enough work on this now that I can put it into my regular daily rotation. It’s sure to reveal a few additional small adjustments as I use it and there are one or two niggling things to tinker on while I wait for the new rubber parts to show up. I’ll also need to find an original metal pair of Royal standard ribbon spools. I suspect as the budget allows I’ll be replacing the platen on this shortly as well.

I’ve dubbed this machine “Slattery” in homage to John Slattery’s performance of the character “Roger Sterling” in Mad Men (AMC, 2007-2015). I’m sampling Scotches and bourbons to find an apropos pairing

This typewriter (29 pounds) is the much bigger brother to my Henry Dreyfuss designed 1949 Royal Quiet De Luxe (16.8 pounds with the case, not pictured). 

A hulking gray 1950 Royal KMG standard typewriter next to it's much smaller relative, the 1949 Royal Quiet De Luxe as they sit on an oak library card catalog.

The Royal KMG, manufactured from 1949-1952, was known to have been used by writers including Saul Bellow, Edward Abbey, Joan Didion, Eliz Kazan, Arthur Miller, Fred Rogers, Rod Sterling, Carl Reiner, Grace Metalious, Wallace Stenger, John Ashbery, and George Sheehan. 

If you’re restoring or repairing a Royal standard typewriter, I’ve started a YouTube playlist of videos, but it’s only got three videos with several more to come.

Photos from the restoration

View into the dusty bottom of a 1950 Royal KMG typewriter featuring the shift post with the springs and nuts for the on feet and motion adjustments as well as the shift spring assembly. Above these are the type rods and springs which attach to the keys and typebars, which are unseen here.

Close up of the dirty, hairy inside of a 1950 Royal KMG typewriter with a close up of the black, cracked and heavily compressed rubber foot. This will definitely require cleaning and replacement

A blue plastic air gun at a car wash is being pointed at a 1950 Royal KMG typewriter in the back seat of a car before the typewriter is "blown out".

A wooden dining table with a partially disassembled 1950 Royal KMG typewriter on it surrounded with a variety of typewriter tools, screwdrivers, and the pieces from the typewriter.

A variety of parts removed from a 1950 Royal KMG typewriter including the cover, the side panels, the platen, ribbon, feet assembly and a variety of wrenches.

Close up of the left side of a 1950 Royal KMG typewriter featuring the paper table, the roller release lever and the right margin set lever. On the rear we can see the row of hundreds of tab clips used for the tabulator functionality.

Close up of a naked 1950 Royal KMG typewriter which fills the photo.

Close up of the typing point, naked carriage and part of the segment of a 1950 Royal KMG typewriter

The four feet from the typewriter featuring four shoulder bolts, black metal brackets, and crushed, aged, and disintegrating black rubber.

Plastic typewriter spools with black ribbon which is so heavily worn you can almost read the imprinted type on them. Another round of use and we'll be able to see holes in the ribbon.

The clean front panel of a 1950 Royal KMG in gray frieze paint contrasted with the dust covers one of which is covered in 70 years of dust, dirt, tar, and hair and the other cleaned and sparkling after a treatment with WD-40.

Small globs of drying carnuba paste wax on the glass tombstone keys of a 1950 Royal KMG typewriter

Side angle of a 1950 Royal KMG typewriter with a bookshelf and a chair with another typewriter on it in the background. This feels very warm and homey.

Hero 1950 Royal KMG typewriter on a library card catalog next to a small orange decorative pie pumpkin and a kindergarten-made black toilet paper roll black bat with googly eyes, wings, and silver decorations drawn on it.

Acquisition: 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe Portable Typewriter with Royal Vogue Typeface

On Sunday September 22, 2024, I picked up what appeared to be a boring-looking, run-of-the-mill, ubiquitous, mid-1950s Royal Quiet De Luxe in brown frieze crinkle paint from ShopGoodWill.com. These typewriters pop up everywhere and regularly sell in the $10-25 range. Of the 3163 typewriter models in the Typewriter Database, the Royal QDL is easily the most collected machine in the typosphere by a margin of 1.5:1 to the next closest model (the Smith-Corona Sterling) on the long list.

I present my 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe portable typewriter with a special hidden feature.

Angled down on the front of a brown Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter next to a crystal old fashioned glass with a shot of Scotch.

The online auction listing for this particular typewriter happened to have a photo of the type basket which included a telltale W, whose sans serif centerlines crisscrossed, which piqued my interest beyond my collector’s desire for a late ’51/’52 QDL variation to pair with my ’48 and ’49 versions and my trusty 1955 model. It was listed for $10.99 when I first saw it, so I waited ever-so-patiently for 4 days with half a dozen alarms set to see if I could snag it for a dramatically below-marketplace valuation. There was one other bid for the minimum, so I put in two last minute bids, one for $20 and another for $1,000 just in case the other bidder had observed what I had noticed and intended to snipe it away. The typewriter collecting gods smiled warmly on me that day.

Close up of the typeslugs on the lefthand side of the basket on a 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe with a Vogue typeface. The keys feature the letters and symbols from Q through X including the distinctive overlap of the center crossing lines of the capital W. Between characters on each the slugs are stamped with a small letter "v".

Eagle eyes, patience, and careful bidding won the day! Knowing the perils of typewriter shipping, especially from Goodwill, I followed up the bidding win and spoke to the GoodWill shipping manager and made an increased donation to their shop to ensure the machine was properly packaged for shipping to prevent possible damage to the uncommon machine. All-in I scored a Royal Vogue for the bargain basement price of under $100. It’s the biggest win I’ve experienced in my short typewriter collecting career. Unless I trip over a mint condition Sholes & Glidden sitting next to a garbage bin, I may be unlikely to surpass this level of luck again.

Given that I’ve seen machines, usually Royal model Ps, with a Vogue typeface go for $950-1,200 in unknown working shape on the open market, I suspect that cleaned up and in restored condition, this could easily sell for $1,500-2,500. Of course, I’ve fallen in love with the typeface, so I’m unlikely to let it go any time soon. 

Design

This 1952 machine follows the QDL redesign by Henry Dreyfuss from August 2, 1945 which was put into production in 1948 and changed a bit in 1949. It maintained some of Dreyfuss’ angular shape as well as the tombstone shaped keys, though they changed from the older glass keys of the 40s to the green plastic of the beginning of the plastic onslaught which was to change typewriter manufacture for the next decades. 

The front of the this iteration of the machine features a chromed Royal badging flanked on both sides with chrome wing features which have cutouts for the ribbon reversal and ribbon color selector switches. Later versions in subsequent years would lose the wings in lieu of a hood latch button and and a simpler ribbon color switch selector.

table level view of the front of a brown Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter with scant chrome finishes

The Fall/Winter Sears catalog in 1952 listed this new variation of the Quiet De Luxe for $103.58 in both pica and elite options. The Vogue typeface would have been an available custom order option for a few dollars at the time, but it apparently wasn’t an often ordered one. Of the 522 Royal QDLs in the Typewriter Database at the moment, I’ve only found 5 (including this one) which have a Vogue typeface which makes it less than 1% of the total. Given collectors’ affinity for them, I could easily imagine the actual manufacture rate may have been even smaller.

Though the catalog indicates that the model was 17 pounds for both the machine and the case, my typewriter is 15.7 pounds by itself and 20.1 pounds in the case.

Overall condition

This machine has the appearance of having been at least moderately used. There are a couple bits of paint knocked off some edges (common with portables of this size) and the machine internals were relatively clean. 

While the machine was in very solid workable and immediately usable condition when I received it, it definitely deserved some care and attention. In particular, someone had ill-advisedly used a black/correction ribbon on it, so the interior around and below the typing point was covered with white correction tape sludge.

Close up of the ribbon vibrator and a portion of the segment of a 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter. The platen and the cylinder scale are flecked with lots of dots of white correction material

On Saturday, October 19th, I spent several hours in 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. Simple Green did an excellent job on the exterior, and I scrubbed some flecks of Correction Fluid off the body. A quick and very light oiling has the machine purring now. I also did a rubdown on the crinkle paint with some WD-40 to make the exterior truly sparkle. I’m now the proud owner of a scintillating wonder of engineering and typeface design.

Close up of the brown frieze crinkle paint on the hood of the typewriter which has a nice sparkle effect to it.

Thought it had the appearance of being reasonably maintained, I couldn’t find any clues that it had had a major overhaul or serious cleaning aside from general maintenance. A few of the linkages had some old, brownish/black grease on them which I would take to indicate that it probably hadn’t been serviced since the 1960s. I’ll have to look up historical dates for the black/white correction tape release, but given the dryness of the black portion of the ribbon I’m guessing the ribbon may have been from the late 1970s. 

A naked Royal Quiet De Luxe sitting on a towel on a wooden table surrounded with typewriter tools, cleaning supplies, and the disassembled portions of the typewriter body and carriage.

Of particular note, the platen still has a small amount of “give” left to it and isn’t as rock hard as I might have suspected for its age. This means I may wait a bit and replace the platen(s) on other machines before I need to get to this one. The rubber rollers still work well and the rubber feet are in reasonable shape too.

The 1952 Quiet De Luxe came with an original period case as well as a key and the original typewriter manual, a digital copy of which can be found on Richard Polt’s Typewriter Site. (At the rate things are going, I’m finding extant keys are almost as rare with portables as finding a Vogue typeface.)

There is what appears to be a Social Security number scratched into the brown paint on the bottom of the machine. I won’t comment further other than to say its a California area SSN, which is where I purchased it, so there’s a reasonable chance that this was a single owner machine.

Keys

The keyboard has a typical mid-century Royal layout. The keys are in a traditional dark green plastic double shot with white plastic. They’re all in exceptional condition aside from the letter “C” which has a small surface flaw that I ought to be able to buff out pretty easily. There are 42 keys and slugs giving 84 typeable characters for a standard United States English keyset along with six additional keys for backspace, shift, shift lock on the left and tab, margin release, and a shift key on the right. The bottom of the 4 bank keyboard features a more standard inset  brown spacebar than its 1948 and 1949 predecessors which had a blocky black design element that made the spacebar more integral to  the front frame of those machines.

View of the keyboard of a 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe featuring green keys and a brown spacebar.

Other functionality

Manufactured roughly at the peak of typewriter functionality, this medium sized portable machine has almost everything a typist could want in terms of functionality. 

There is a rear rabbit-ear style paper support, double sided Royal Magic Margins, touch control (inside the hood), a manually accessible ribbon switch and bichrome/stencil setting switch on the front, and five manually adjustable tabulator sets accessible from the back which are viewable when looking down with the paper table folded back. It has left and right carriage release levers, both temporary and permanent platen adjustment mechanisms, and a single card finger on the right side of the typing line. This QDL has the usual 1, 2, and 3 line spacing mechanism.

Close up view of the hood, typebasket hole, carriage, and paper table of a brown 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter.

Case

The case certainly has seen some heavy signs of travel, but seems to be holding together well despite the wear. The inside is in excellent shape and none of the fabric on the exterior is coming off despite the heavy wear.

A worn, but functional yellow fabric covered hard case for a 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe portable typewriter.

Burgundy red interior of a typewriter case for a 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe portable.

A typewriter manual boasting "You own the World's No. 1 Portable" next to a small, black Royal typewriter brush and the key for its case.
Disaster Girl all grown up and ready to put out some serious samizdat.

Typeface Sample

The typeface on my Royal QDL is the previously mentioned highly prized and much-sought-after Royal Vogue. It types 10 characters per inch and 6 vertical lines per inch. A type sample from my machine with blue and green ribbon appears below. If you need an extended sample, for fun I typed out a large portion of the lyrics to Madonna’s 1990 hit Vogue.

Typeface sample of 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe with a distinctive san serif art-deco inspired Vogue face.

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 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe: 

Photo Gallery of Cleaning

Photo Gallery of Finished Machine

Hero shot of a 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter on a library card catalog next to a green bottle of Laphroaig with a white label behind a crystal old fashioned glass of Scotch. Angled down on the front of a brown Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter next to a crystal old fashioned glass with a shot of Scotch. table level view of the front of a brown Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter with scant chrome finishes View of a 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe in brown frieze paint and green plastic keys sitting on a wooden library card catalogue. An old fashioned glass of bourbon sits in the background. Table level view of the left side of a brown crinkle painted 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter View from behind 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter down onto the rabbit ear paper supports and into the typebasket of the typewriter View into the hood of a 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter showing the typebasket with cleaned slugs. Oblique angle of the left rear corner of a brown 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter Table level view of the back of a brown 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter featuring the somewhat faded but still very clear Royal decal and company information. Table level view of the right side of a brown 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter. View of the keyboard of a 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe featuring green keys and a brown spacebar. Angle down onto the right side of a 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter Close up view of the hood, typebasket hole, carriage, and paper table of a brown 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter. View of a 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter from the top two rows of keys to the back with the hood open so that we can see the ribbon in the cups and the typebars sitting on a black rubber rest. Left rear corner of a 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter with the carriage moved to the right to reveal the window onto the frame with the typewriter's serial number 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter sitting on its rear panel so we can see the bottom of the machine and all of it's internals

Acquisition: 1958 Olympia SM3 Portable Typewriter

The Purchase

On Saturday, August 3rd, after a patience-trying wait, I picked up this lovely green 1958 Olympia SM3. It’s the first typewriter in my collection with both an exotic character set as well as a typeface that veers outside of the standard pica and elite typefaces.

It was a Facebook Marketplace purchase for a better-than-reasonable price. I had made a middling offer to someone out in Rancho Cucamonga not knowing what sort of condition the machine was in. I should have headed out the next day to pick it up from the seller, but with our respective schedules and the 45+ minute drive out, I opted to suggest a Saturday pickup. In the erstwhile, someone sniped it away from me with a significantly larger offer. And of course a day later, they’re on r/typewriters asking about what the typewriter was not realizing that it included some math and Greek characters. I watched and waited and stayed in contact with the seller for more than two weeks. As it turned out the bigger offer never materialized, so the seller told me to come out and pick it up for my original offer. 

The seller was in her early 30’s with a relatively young family. She’d inherited the machine from her parents or in-laws who used it, but had kept it in an attic in Newport Beach for the past few decades. Apparently the original owner was a pharmacist, which may account in part for the custom Greek letters on the keyboard. Despite the intermediate inheritor, this has broadly been a one owner machine.

I tried to not show any shock at the non-standard typeface when I picked it up for what is assuredly below market value. I could easily have seen this going for $180-200 as a standard SM3 in unknown condition, but somewhere in the neighborhood of $300-400 with the non-standard typeset and the Congress typeface.

Overall condition

The machine had seen some reasonable use followed by neglect. The first thing I noticed was the damaged paint job on the case, which I’ll go into detail on below.

The usual bushings problem in Olympia SM3s was definitely present, but fortunately the seller hadn’t spent much time testing or tinkering with it to damage the paint job. I quickly swapped the compressed bushings out the day I brought it home.

The ribbon was mostly dried out and worn, but potentially serviceable, though I’ve opted to replace it entirely. One of the spools was an original metal and the other was a plastic replacement. 

In addition to a carriage lock that wasn’t engaging properly, there were some issues with five of the custom keycaps.

Beyond this, the machine was generally in good condition. Despite some reasonable use, the paint finish is in great shape and only shows light wear on the front corners and the front edge of the hood. It definitely needed a good cleaning, oiling, and adjusting.

Richard Polt has posted a manual for the Olympia SM3 for those who’d like to see what originally came with the machine as well as its features.

Clean, Oil, and Adjust

I started the process of disassembling and cleaning the machine on Saturday, August 31st. I spent a portion of the day on Sunday finishing the cleaning and reassembling and adjusting the machine. Oiling the necessary parts as I reassembled made it far easier to limit the amount of oil I used for future maintenance.

I took some photos as work proceeded for those interested in that portion of the process.

My notes from mid-July were tremendously helpful in speeding this process along.

One of the most bothersome issues I encountered while cleaning it was that it was put up “wet” and stored  for too long. The original owner had the all-too-common bad habit of erasing directly into the typewriter rather than moving the carriage to the side. This means that it had a fair amount of eraser crumbs stuck to the over-oiled carriage rails and other internals. Over decades of storage, this has heavily tarnished the carriage rails and required not only aggressive cleaning on some parts, but several rounds of metal polish to remove some of the tarnish. There are still some light stains on the internal “brights” which I’ve given up on after half a dozen attempts to minimize them. They’re now in much better condition, but not as perfect as I wish they might be.

Keys

The keyboard on this Olympia is a fairly standard U.S. based QWERTY keyboard meant for sale in America through The Inter-Continental Trading Corporation which originally imported Olympias into the Americas.

View down onto the typebasket and keyboard of an Olympia SM3.

Of particular note on this machine, some of the standard keys have been swapped out with some custom math and Greek letter keys.  These are the )/0, !/3/4, 1/4, 1/2, ,/, ./. which have been replaced respectively by )/ϒ, Ω/π, λ/∫, Δ/, , μ/. 

A close up view of the right side of a green 1958 Olympia SM3 typewriter that has some custom Greek and mathematical symbols

I’ve already accidentally typed an upsilon instead of a zero at least once. It may take some work at the muscle memory to remember to use the capital “O” to make it as reflexive as doing an apostrophe-backspace-period to effect an exclamation point which this machine lacks in lieu of other glyphs.

 While most of the keys have the appearance of being doubleshot plastic, the custom keys seem to have been manufactured differently. Perhaps they were etched out and then filled? In any case, the symbols on the custom keys were etched out and missing most of their original color making it difficult, but not impossible to know what they were. To quickly and easily restore them, I spent a couple of minutes with a Crayola crayon and the small gaps on the keys were filled in and looking nice and white again. This solution also has the benefit of being easily reversible from a restoration perspective.

Side by side photos of several keycaps on a typewriter. The left has some characters which are etched in but have no colors. The right has those filled in with white crayoe so that they are a good match with all the rest of the keys

Other functionality

Manufactured at the peak of typewriter functionality, this SM3 has just about all the niceties one could wish for. Compared to typewriters made since mid-century there isn’t anything really extraordinary about any of the features aside from their incredibly well designed and manufactured tolerances.

It does bear mentioning that while most other machines of this era were segment shift machines, this one is a carriage shift which can make using it for very long periods a bit more tiring. There are two manually adjustable spring mechanisms inside the machine to help alleviate some of this effect.

Of interest, in comparing this machine with my other 1958 SM3 which has a lower serial number, I noticed that the older SM3 has an additional scale on the back near the tab stops, but this one doesn’t. It’s likely a reasonable cost savings to have removed it which also frees the assembly line from needing to do another alignment procedure on them. From a functionality standpoint, it’s not a big loss as I tend to set my tabs from the front of the machine and can easily look down on the scale at the back of the paper table and align the tab stops with that scale anyway. The additional scale on the back would only have been useful for those who turned their machines around and set them from the back, but this would also need the scale to have been appropriately aligned to provide the precision in setting the correct stops.

Case

This SM3 came with one of the traditional curved, space-aged wooden cases painted in silver that most SM3s shipped with. The inside was in relatively nice condition and only needed a quick vacuuming and some brushing to clean it out. It also came with the original key on a small keychain.

A 1958 Olympia SM3 typewriter case with sinuous curves, pitted silver paint. and a few splotches of white out. It has a very space age feel, but isn't the sort of square or modular case that one would want to stack up like other typewriter cases of the period.

Apparently the environment it had been stored in was less than ideal, so the exterior paint has reacted and has a terribly rough texture now compared with its traditional smooth surface. I’m going to have to strip and repaint it I think. I’ve seen some hammered metal paint finishes which might come close to matching the original, but I might opt for something completely out of the ordinary as well. 

The metal on the case fittings has rusted significantly.  I should be able to clean up and polish most of the metal fittings fairly easily, though I probably won’t be able to get them back completely without replacing them altogether.

Silver Olympia SM3 typewriter case standing up on it's end. The metal fittings holding the green plastic handle are thoroughly rusted and the key latch is heavily tarnished. The feet on the top side are dried out and wrinkled and the bottom feet are only slightly better. There is a brown tag with the typewriter's name and serial number tied around the handle with a piece of brown twine.

Based on the condition of the case’s feet, I’m guessing the owner used the typewriter inside the case for most of their work. I’m debating whether or not to replace the feet, but I’m leaning towards doing it because they’re in functional, but marginal condition.

A view of the inside bottom portion of the Olympia SM3 typewriter case. Fairly clean there are four metal fittings for clamping the machine into the case. Sitting in the middle of the case is the key.

My Last Typewriter?

I suppose if you were going to quit collecting Olympia SM3s after getting a particular machine, this would be pretty close to the perfect one. This shirt I got on the same day as the typewriter is obviously about Olympia SM3s, as who could ever quit collecting? or perhaps as Richard Polt is fond of saying, “investing”?

Sitting on a desk are a green Olympia SM3 typewriter in its case next to a gray t-shirt with a black and white image of the same typewriter surrounded with the text: "My Last One. Maybe"

Full transparency, I’ve acquired five machines since I picked up this typewriter, but I’ve also washed that t-shirt 3 times since then. With the washings you almost can’t seen any of the original screen print, so I suppose the universe has spoken on that account in my favor.

Typeface Sample

The typeface on this SM3 is a somewhat uncommon (though not rare as some might contend) Congress Elite No. 84 at 11 pitch or 2.3m/m. (I’d suspect it’s probably rarer in the U.S. compared to Germany or the rest of Europe, but have no data beyond my limited colloquial experience to support this.)

A type sample from my machine with its custom typeset and a new ribbon appears below.

1958 Serial Number: 1279338 Olympia SM3 Congress Elite No. 84 typeface, 11 CPI, 2.3m/m, portable w/ case, bichrome, carriage shift, tabulator, U.S. keyboare 4 bank, 51 keys, green crinkle paint, dark green plastic keys =234567897-π qwertyuiop asdfghjkl;e zxcvbnm,./ +"#$%&'()*2 QWERTYUIOPA ASDFGHJKL: @ ZXCVBNMAU? the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog SPHINX OF BLACK QUARTZ JUDGE MY VOW

Close up of the typebasket and Congress Elite typeface on a 1958 Olympia SM3 typewriter. The typeface is gleamingly clean.
Though upside down, you can see the faint Upsilon and end parenthesis characters next to the “9” key which needed some restoration.

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 1958 Olympia SM3:

Future

While I do like the difference in typeface, I’m not sure how much use this machine will get with my finely tuned and very similar 1958 SM3 which has an elite typeface I really love. There are still a few paces I want to put this typewriter through and one or two fine tuning adjustments I’ll likely make, but perhaps I may consider selling this? 

It’s now in excellent condition and I may recover the original platen and rubber to enhance it even further. The issue may become how much to list it for as a potential sale? It has several uncommon features which may appeal to a serious collector who doesn’t clean and service their own machines, but who wants one of the most collectible machines out there with a few exotic features that is ready to type on from day one.

Photo Gallery

 

I started the process of cleaning my green 1958 Olympia SM3 to bring it back up to speed. Things are generally moving apace although the mixture of eraser shavings and old oil has tarnished the carriage rails. Spent some time with some metal polish trying to bring them back to their old glory. Should be able to finish flushing out tomorrow and getting it back together and properly adjusted.

Here’s a bit of a time lapse of the work:

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.

1940 Corona Zephyr typewriter sits on a wooden library card catalog next to a white ceramic bowl of bright yellow lemons

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.

View of the back of the typewriter featuring the gold L. C. Smith & Corona Company decal, a portion of which has faded to silver.

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.

Close up of the keyboard of the Corona Zephyr featuring circular yellow lettered legends with black backgrounds and wrapped in silver metal with glass keytops.

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.

Focus on the rear portion of the typewriter including the Corona Zephyr decal, the small plastic ribbon spools, the type basket, and the carriage and platen

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. 

Corona Zephyr with it's thin metal case cover standing upright behind it. Compared to the majority of cases and covers, it's phenomenally thin and light. The inside rear of the Corona Zephyr's metal lid featuring two sharp small metal triangles which fit into the back of the machine. Also present is some obvious rust damage. Close up of the metal handle attachments and the thin metal handle strap of the Corona Zephyr typewriter case The Corona Zephyr typewriter with it's case top attached and ready to go sits on top of a wooden library card catalog.

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.

Typeface sample on a 3x5" index card which includes the serial number and basic information about the typewriter.

Close up of the left side of the type basket featuring a shiny Pica No. 1 typeface of the 1940 Corona Zephyr typewriter

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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