About this blog

This blog is about the daily activities in a busy typewriter shop. I want to share with you the many interesting people who come in here, the beautiful machines I get and most of all the great typewriter stories that people share with me!

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Always Check Under The Hood

A 1955 Royal HH with Vogue typeface.

It also has one special key that I don't know what it is.


Ribbon tins are an inexpensive way start a collection.

I like the 20 cent sticker on the ribbon from F.W. Woolworth's.

Two L-32's, one from Italy and one from Spain.

I actually got two brown's in, one with Technical Elite.

A 1960's picture of a German typewriter repairman.

I get lots of these SCM changeable type keys in.

18 comments:

  1. I think it's good advice to check the slugs/typeface regardless of the typewriter brand and model; you'll never know what you're gonna get. Love the Vogue typeface. And it's always nice to see Olivettis. ( :

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  2. It's great that you are busy.

    That Vogue typeface is fantastic. It is one I have been searching for, but like a Mill, not finding.

    The interchangeable type is neat also. Some of it is on my wish list for my Classic-12.

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  3. Oh, man, love those "e"s -- with their optimistic upslope!

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  4. I think another typospherian found a 50's QDL with Royal Vogue type not long ago as well, took him by surprise. I saw in a retail store catalog earlier this year that you could order Royal Vogue on Royals well up into the 50's - in this particular catalog, it's one of only 3 styles you could choose, the others being Elite and Pica.

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  5. Vogue machines... damn sexy. On a HH! That's completely unexpected. Excellent machine there.

    Ted... Wasn't that you?

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  6. Wow, that really is a surprise on the HH. And that f in a box? No idea!

    There are a bunch of Smith-Corona changeable types on eBay right now. One that amused me was a smiley face and a sad face. Nondigital emoticons!

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  7. I love my Royal HH, and I'm fascinated by that symbol. Can't find anything about that in my reference works, but I see at this link (http://blog.modernmechanix.com/its-easy-now-girls-to-type-special-characters/), "girls," that the Royal HH was advertised as having a special-characters key that could installed. Now if we could just find a list of the Royal special keys available, we'd likely find out what that symbol means. Anyone have sales materials or a manual for the HH?

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  8. Love those L-32's.

    What great typeface! Art deco style rules out loud. And how strange to find one from that date. Explanation? Time travelers.

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  9. That really is a fantastic typeface. I never luck out in that department. Thanks for sharing that.

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  10. Love the burgundy Oly!
    And the Vogue is sexy as always. Lucky girl!
    Oh, that 'f in a square' symbol only makes me think of one thing.

    Facebook.

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  11. Everyone- Thank you for all your comments. Who knew there were so many Vogue type fans out there. I'm very surprised that Royal offer Vogue on their machines up into the 50's. That means there are probably a lot more Vogue typewriters than we think out there waiting to be found. That's very encouraging.

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  12. Someone here (Colorado) has been listing a similar Royal on Craigslist. Tried to get them to go down on price but they are firm, guess I'll just have to pay the $20. I try not to pay much for full size machines, because I don't see that there is much market for them, so if I get one, I expect it is just for my personal collection. I'm curious if other people are finding any demand for the old standards.

    My site is more or less off the ground, lots to do on it still, but it is sort of there:

    TypewriterExchange.com

    It has been a pleasant way to rediscover some of our family history, most of which I haven't had time to post anything about. And my family members have been enthusiastic about the idea of capturing a little bit of the family business history.

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  13. I got the same typeface on my Royal Quiet De Luxe, same keys, same series. It is my favourite one and I always wanted to know the name of the typeface. So, thanks.
    The special key is for stamp collecting, as far as I know. I saw it on one machine lately, and the owner explained her father used this key (it was doubled with another stamp specific letter) for cataloguing his collection.

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    1. shordzi- Thanks for the info on the special key. That's amazing that someone knew what it was. I might show it to some stamp collectors to get more info. Thank you!

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  14. Hi,

    I'm the owner of the Royal HH and I'm so excited that the typewriter held such a nice surprise for you! I have always loved the typeface and that was the reason I wanted it repaired.

    The typewriter came from my dad's office at The Architects Collaborative in Cambridge and was thrown away by the company (in the 70s?) when his secretary was upgraded to an IBM Selectric. Dad rescued it, brought it home, and I typed on it my whole childhood.

    The unusual symbol stands for square foot!

    Thanks again for taking such great care of it, now I will do the same :)

    Best,
    Liz

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  15. I just found that the Type Available Catalog, which is available on the Bitsavers site of old computer manuals, and which gives the characters available for IBM typewriter electric typewriters, showed this character as available for the Pica typestyle on pages 7 and 11, but I see someone else has fully identified the character.

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  16. I see this is an old one, but I thought I'd chime in. A few weeks ago I picked up a pair of HHs from a junk dealer mate. I didn't look closely, at $24 each I didnt care, but when I went to the serial numbers, the prefixes were HHE and HHS. I had the serial numbers written down when I looked them up, the machines were back in my storage locker so I was really anxious, did I just buy an Italic font typewriter? I've not owned one yet. When I got back to my storage I went straight to it and was disappointed-- just some plain old sans serif font. I couldn't type with it, it was so dirty and well stuck up with gunk and no ribbon but with a little work I managed to get it to type, and that typeface is really very pretty. So I did some research, which is what brought me here. I'll be putting the machine in the Database soon, once I've got it cleaned up a bit. I am surprised that this is such a rare font but shows how little I know... Something I should add: the other HH has blank keytops. It was used for teaching typing! The HHS has math symbols so, considering these two machines have been sitting in this old barn right next to eachother for decades, I think that they probably came from a school. I think they have not been apart since they were new, also. Sort of romantic... and I'll never separate them

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    1. Correction-- I looked again, it is slightly different, a little less stylish. The horizontal bar of the 'e' does not slant at an angle, the "W" doesn't have the crossing in the middle. I think what I have would be called 'sans serif' and not Vogue, but apart from the few differences they are very similar. My machine has +,÷, I think a few other math symbols. What IS the type font called?

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