Odell and His Typewriter<br /> by [[Typewriter Gazette]]<br /> accessed on 2026-04-14T16:31:03

unpublished reply to u/kinga_forrester at https://www.reddit.com/r/vintageads/comments/1rvqt0e/comment/oayqqbd/

Rightly or wrongly I'm sure a vanishing number of people at that time would have held your view.

You've got to remember the historical context of this ad. During World War II all but one typewriter manufacturer in the US ceased production of typewriters and the one remaining was really producing machines for the military. This ad from 1943 actually says in tiny print at the bottom: "Royal is making bullets, and parts for airplane engines, propellers, machine guns, rifles." Civilian groups did drives to collect typewriters to send them to the war effort. Many of the extant and upcoming generation of typewriter repairmen went off to the war effort. All this against the backdrop of people being used to taking their machines (especially office ones in use 8 hours a day) in for service every year or so for cleaning and adjustment. Most office typewriters of the time were in use for an average of 3 years before requiring complete overhauls or replacement. In addition to all of the other things being rationed, typewriters and typewriter service were also being heavily rationed, particularly because the manpower and steel was being diverted heavily to the war effort.

At the time, most typewriters were in the $125-200 range which is the equivalent to about $1,500 now. They were trying to help people preserve their machines and functionality. This was at a time when almost any sizeable town in the US had at least one repair shop busy with work. A city the size of Chicago probably had several dozens of repair shops working full time and that likely dropped to just a few during the war. (There's only one now, and it's only been open for a few years; it also has a wait list of several months for service because it's so busy.)

The issue of typewriter preservation was so great during the war that the U.S. Navy produced a series of videos about their proper use and maintenance of them *and other expensive office machines of the time). See videos at https://boffosocko.com/2025/06/06/typewriter-use-and-maintenance-for-beginning-to-intermediate-typists/ The government also got involved in creating maintenance manuals like Basic Typewriter Care and Maintenance, Equipment Maintenance Series No. 1 (US FWIP, 1945) and repair manuals like War Department Technical Manual TM 37-305: Typewriter Maintenance (1944) which is essentially the same as the [1945 Ames manual[(https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/AmesVol1-Standards.pdf).

Comparing this with today when the general value of typewriters is almost nil and we're lucky to have a few dozen professional typewriter repair shops still operating, but the rate of retirements and deaths has long been outstripping the replacement rate and you'll understand why self-service is necessary. Even given this, the number of typewriter fora on the internet, Facebook, Reddit, etc. the amount of tinkering knowledge is almost cripplingly bad but seems to chug along. You'll notice that there are an awful lot of people just trying to identify their machines much less carry out the most basic repairs. The number of "broken machines" I've acquired in my collection that only needed the ribbon color selector set to something besides "stencil" is a sad indicator of the state of typewriter knowledge now, much less what it may have been in their heyday, tinkering or not.

Even by 1983 as typewriters were already beginning to feel the pressure from the computer business, books like Bryan Kravitz and Nancy Gorrell's Hints for a Happy Typewriter were attempting to educate people on proper maintenance and light repair before needing to rely on repair shops that were already starting to feel the pinch.

Incidentally, IBM wasn't what put most typewriter companies out of business. It was vicious competition caused by offshoring and the cheapening of parts and materials while computers in general did the rest. And as for all those typewriter repair shops: most began selling/servicing word processors, office machines like fax machines, photo copiers, dictaphones, and even computers.

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

The Arabic We Never Got: Unified Arabic Script #shorts<br /> by [[Haithooomi]] on YouTube<br /> accessed on 2026-01-22T09:56:12

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

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.

Collaborating with the Nazis: The Black Mark on Remington’s Typewriter History<br /> by [[Robert Messenger]]<br /> accessed on 2025-11-26T10:13:43

via Darren Herschler-Henry's book

https://christmas.musetechnical.com/

Catalogs & Wishbooks from Sears, Montgomery Ward, and JC Penny

In Search Of: Clarence Leroy “Rocky” Jones<br /> by [[Ted Munk]] on November 12, 2016 <br /> accessed on 2025-10-15T11:15:17

Mark Twain Wrote the First Book Ever Written With a Typewriter<br /> by [[Josh Jones]] in Open Culture<br /> accessed on 2025-10-13T23:01:35

https://themechanicaltype.blogspot.com/2019/10/a-comprehensive-history-of-royal-model-p.html?m=1

Olympia SM series (part 1, 1948-1964)<br /> by [[x over it]]<br /> accessed on 2025-09-05T17:14:33

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

An Orga Privat and its History by [[Will Davis]]

Bing Werke was the manufacturer and Orga was the distributor.

Piece of wood used to replace the rear legs of the typewriter to set it up by whittling.

A cut-rate typewriter without all the bells and whistles.

https://new.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1gdo6lw/the_ergonomic_keyboard_goes_back_a_lot_further/

Unraveling the Royal Quiet De Luxe – Part 5: Reprise – The End of the Royal “A” Model? by [[Ted Munk]]

Unraveling the Royal Quiet De Luxe – Part 4: The Colorful End of the QDL, and What it Became by [[Ted Munk]]

https://www.uppercasetypewriter.com/

Peter V. Tytell, a Typewriter Whisperer, Is Dead at 74 by [[Richard Sandomir]]

Usually it might have been typewriter shop, gun shop, then cell phone store, so it's intriguing to see the opposite ordering.

Yankees, Typewriters, Scandals, and Cooperstown: A Baseball Memoir by Bill Madden<br /> Release date: April 1, 2025 (hardcover)

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).

The 'Crypto' Underwood Typewriter by [[Robert Messenger]]

https://www.mortati.com/glusker/marchant/scmstory/p3.htm

Mr. Churchill's Typewriters by [[Susan Elia Macneal]]

The infamous Apple typewriter memo is 40 years old ... by [[Richard Polt]]

The Time I Met New York’s Patron Saint of Typewriters by [[Thaisa Frank]] March 12, 2019

https://davistypewriters.blogspot.com/2015/01/harris-visible-rex-visible-demountable.html

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCScn9kxUjOfDNJk3Z-1NWKA Old Typerwriters and Calculators

The YouTube Channel of fausto tomesani https://typewriterdatabase.com/typewriters.php?hunter_search=7180

Needs better sourcing, but

Henry Dreyfuss added crinkle paint to his Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter design to diffuse reflected light so that typists who worked at their machines all day wouldn't have headaches from the glare reflecting off the fronts of their machines.

https://workpad.co.uk/properties/45-bedford-row/

45 Bedford Row was the address for the Durable Supply Company which distributed Orga typewriters in Britain in the 1930s.

https://typewriterdatabase.com/1924-orga-privat-2.11451.typewriter

Some scant history of Orga typewriters without sourcing.

Weller, Charles Edward. The Early History of the Typewriter. Chase & Shepard, printers, 1918. http://archive.org/details/earlyhistorytyp00wellgoog.

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