39 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2026
    1. That's just a post-war one. Rheinmetall typewriter factory was situated in Sömmerda, Thuringia (so far from Rhein), this way it become a soviet-owned company after 1945 and before it was returned to newly created GDR. A lot of these machines were produced to be supplied to USSR as kind of reparations payments. The layout also proves this. Here's an experimental "ЭУКЕН" layout, one of transitional variants on the way to modern "ЙЦУКЕН" (since 1953). While all the pre-war typewriters were built with 1918 layout "Й1УКЕН"

      https://www.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1rbydwu/soviet_era_typewriter/

  2. Jan 2026
    1. reply to u/aleahey at https://reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1qjzgtq/remington_postal_telegraph_mill/

      On the paper guide, it definitely looks like a bend it back into shape issue.

      While your model is obviously decaled as "Postal Telegraph", it's not a traditional mill machine as those are generally marked by having no lower case characters and having uppercase only. Sometimes it was uppercase with some "filler character" (often a + on Remingtons, a ~ on Underwoods, and a double dot on Olivettis) or uppercase on both the top and bottom of the slug. Generally the zero character had a slash through it to distinguish it specifically from the letter "O".

      There are only two other exemplars on the typewriter database, so please be sure to upload your photos and data when you get a chance. https://typewriterdatabase.com/Remington.10+Postal+Telegraph.42.bmys You'll notice that one of the examplars by u/jbhusker doesn't appear to be a traditional mill while the other is. Perhaps James has some unwritten research on his Remington Postal Telegraph?

      If you sift through the typewriter database you'll find other examples and research (especially if you're looking at commentary under individual examples while you're logged in). As an example of mills from Underwood in their Western Union Special: https://typewriterdatabase.com/Underwood.Western+Union+Special.4.bmys

  3. Dec 2025
    1. reply to u/rawbran30 at https://old.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1py74mf/internet_hype_trendeffect_and_brand_popularity/

      Olympias were imported into the US from the 50s into the 70s and were manufactured at peak typewriter engineering and manufacturing methods before machines slowly got cheaper and cheaper in terms of materials and craftsmanship through the 60s and into the early 80s before typewriters were subsumed by the word processor market.

      Compared to Smith-Coronas and Remingtons of the 50s and early 60s (their peaks), Olympias are slightly better manufactured in terms of fit and finish. They're also slightly more modern looking in terms of body shapes and colors compared to other machines, which also helps to drive up price amongst collectors.

      Now is an Olympia SM3 or SM9 really so much better than a Smith-Corona Silent Super that they should enjoy an almost 2x jump in price for an unserviced model? Potentially not, but if this is your issue, then buy something from a professional shop that's been cleaned, oiled, and adjusted and a lot of the price differential evaporates.

  4. Nov 2025
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  7. Aug 2025
    1. Portable Typewriters Today - February 2015<br /> by [[Will Davis]] on 2015-02-10<br /> accessed on 2025-08-05T16:35:48

  8. Jul 2025
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  11. Mar 2025
    1. In 2013, jaw-dropping details emerged about the extent of US intelligence agency surveillance programmes. This prompted the Russian Federal Guard Service (FSO) to revert to typewriters in an attempt to evade eavesdropping. German officials were also reported to be considering a similar move in 2014. (During the Cold War, Soviet spies actually developed techniques for snooping on electric typewriter activity, a form of "keylogging" technology – where the keystrokes inputted on a keyboard are captured. US operatives also reconstructed text from typewriter ribbons – meaning that even typewriters aren't completely safe.)
  12. Feb 2025
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  14. Dec 2024
    1. The markets and level of ubiquity of these items in their heyday are so dramatically different that this is certainly an apples and oranges comparison.

      However, if you want to compare the artist/users of the instrument to their machines, which is a way of potentially intuiting a potential answer to your question (one which is highly subjective), you might go by who was using particular typewriters of the time. Here's some data to consider: https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/typers.html

      For that rough era in American-made machines, you'll see peak engineering/manufacturing in the 1950s out of the Smith-Corona Super Silent, the Remington Quiet-Riter, and the Royal Quiet De Luxe. Design, touch, and tuning can all be such subjective measures here so as to heavily Muddy (the) Waters ('52 Gibson Les Paul Gold Top/'58 Fender Telecaster) on style, quality, and popularity amongst the cognoscenti. Peak quality in the 60s had broadly moved to post-war Germany and Italy with machines from Olympia (SM3, 4, 5, 7, etc.) and Olivetti respectively.

      For my personal money, in American machines of the time, I love the design and performance of my well-tuned, and mostly restored 1950 Royal KMG. However, the current market certainly wouldn't indicate a broader beloved status for these the way you'll see for Stratocasters. (You'll also find some horribly maintained and un-tuned machines out there on the market, which is why so much of the antique and vintage typewriter market pricing is so wildly out of whack.)

      A separate flavor of question certainly, but if you're looking for a solid performing typewriter to pair aesthetically and temporally with a '64 Strat, I'd go with a Royal FP ('57-62) (which came in Royaltone or Pearl Dark Gray smooth, Royaltone or Pearl Light Gray smooth, Willow Green smooth, Sea Blue smooth, Cameo Pink smooth (Petal Pink) , Brushed Aluminum, Sandstone smooth, and Coral Rose) or the smaller Royal Futura 800 ('58-'63).

  15. Nov 2024
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  18. Aug 2024
    1. One large study by Ben D. Woodand Frank N. Freeman in 1932 paved theway for acceptance in elementary schools.The study included 14,947 children ofelementary-school age in an experimenton the effect of the typewriter on class-room performance (3). The children whohad typing instruction actually spent onlyan hour or two a week at the typewriter,yet at the end of the first year they out-performed the nontyping pupils in read-ing.
  19. Jul 2024
  20. May 2024
    1. You can cross check the data in the typewriter database for most of the big US and European brands to see the slow merging and dying out of the typewriter through the late 60s and early 70s onward. See, for example, Royal: https://typewriterdatabase.com/royal.72.typewriter-serial-number-database which has buyouts and mergers listed at the top. The database also has a huge volume of references for how it was compiled which will give you additional history.

      The early 70s saw a lot of plastic entering the space where more durable steel used to be. Most major US firms were shifting to electric after IBM in roughly 1961. Post war manufacture of machines picked up significantly in Italy, Spain, Holland, and even Wales which displaced some of the manufacturing in the US, where solid machines of the prior generation still worked and only needed servicing rather than outright replacement. (Planned obsolescence wasn't as much of a thing during the 30s and 40s, and in fact, [maintenance was heavily highlighted during the war](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocdxgkxKAKo) when most US manufacturers ceased production of most models.) Eventually Japan displaced the business followed by India (which ceased in 2009) and China. Wrexham, Wales ceased manufacture of electronic Brother typewriters in 2012.

      Ever decreasing costs of materials and manufacturing, improved manufacturing technology, increased competition in the space, combined with containerized shipping, competition from computers, etc. all contributed to the cheapening of the typewriter and hastened the death of manufacturing (though not the use) of manual typewriters.

      Richard Polt's The Typewriter Revolution (2015) has a "microhistory" of typewriters in chapter 2 with references to some addition histories if you're interested.

      Your question about Olympia manufacture dates (and more) can be found via: https://typewriterdatabase.com/olympia.61.typewriter-serial-number-database

      x over it has a good two part series about the evolution of Olympias at:

      https://xoverit.blogspot.com/2015/02/olympia-sm-series-part-1-1948-1964.html

      https://xoverit.blogspot.com/2015/04/olympia-sm-series-part-2-1964-1980s.html