Yesterday was just perfect: it was sunny and I could drive my old Mercedes to the Dutch typewriter collectors meeting. Organizer Spider created a very interesting program, opening with a presentation about her own machines. Than all of us presented our favorite portable typewriter. It was the first time I saw a Lilliput typewriter, which Cor kindly took with him. Between and before the presentations we had time enough to inspect all the Halberg portables we took with us.
The Liliput typewriter (all pictures made by Harm Stumpel)
After the lunch, Spider refereed a real speed typing contest. Albert Tangora would probably turn in his grave, but it was great fun. It looked a bit like this, but slower:
I had to leave early, so I missed out on Jaap's presentation.
Thanks Jaap, Flip, Jos, Harm, Cor and organizer Spider for a terrific day!
Here are some more pictures, taken by Harm:
Comparing Halbergs
Inspecting a radio/typewriter
Tachotypes
Getting instructions before the speed typing contest
Last week, I won this
Lambert typewriter at an online auction. The grandfather of the seller bought
it at least 50 years ago at a flea market in Amsterdam and it had been in the
family ever since. The machine is still in good condition, complete and (if I would
re-ink the pad) still working. See the video I made, below.
Inventor Frank Lambert
(born in France, emigrated to the USA) filed his first typewriter patent in
1884, but it was only in 1900 when the Lambert typewriter was produced for the
first time. In the mean time, he made a fortune with the invention of a water meter. The
sale of his typewriter proved to be more challenging, although over the next 3 decades more than 17.000 Lamberts
were sold.
The main reason why
people would prefer a Lambert over, for example, an Underwood 5 (the most
common standard typewriter at the time), was because the Lambert was four times
as cheap. You could own a Lambert for as little as 25 dollar. It was not as
good or fast as an Underwood, but for sporadically use at home it was good
enough.
Most of the Lambert
typewriters (from serial number 2.500 onwards) were sold by Sidney Hébert from France.
First he only dealt the typewriters, later (from SN 5.500 onwards) he bought the machinery and
constructed Lambert typewriters himself. These later machines bear the label "constructeur".
My Lambert typewriter bears the name of
Sidney Hébert, but without the label “constructeur”. Strange enough, its serial number is very high: 26.618. The Typewriter Sketchbook mentions that normal serial
numbering stopped around 17.000. Only a few machines within the 26.000 range have
survived and it is suggested that these machines were numbered differently for
export.
My machine has some
export characters on the keyboard (the so-called “multiple key”), so that would
subscribe this theory, as well as the fact that it eventually turned up at a
flea market in the Netherlands. More important, its multiple key can rotate in order to write italics.
According to the same Typewriter Sketchbook, only the first 3.300 Lamberts
carried this feature, which is why collectors call these machines “model
1”.
Unless somebody comes
up with a better conclusion, all this makes me believe that my Lambert typewriter model 1 should have had a
serial number between 2.500 and 3.300, but was numbered differently because it
was meant for export.
Here are some pictures and a typecast from the ultra flat Rooy Portable typewriter I bought today: sn 27446, produced in 1953. I should retype it so it makes more sense. But the sun is shining, so: sorry, can't be bothered. :)
I didn’t drive almost
2 hours to Germany just to take pictures of typewriters and collectors (see my
previous post). In fact, I carried a list of typewriters that I would possibly
buy if the price would be right.
One of the machines on
my list was the Daugherty Visible (1893). It’s not only a very nice typewriter
to see, it also has historical value for being the very first completely
visible typewriter. Unfortunately, there was no Daugherty for sale, but the
next best thing was standing on one of the tables: a Pittsburg Visible (1898).
This is almost the same machine as the Daugherty, except for carrying another
name. The price was right and it seemed complete to me, so I put it in the
trunk of my car.
The serial number of my machine is 11985.
According to this serial number list around 10 thousand
Daugherty’s were made between 1890 and 1898. In or around 1898, the machine was
renamed Pittsburg Visible with continuous serial numbers running into 12 thousand. In 1902 the Pittsburg Visible 10 was
introduced, with serial numbers ranging from 13 to 23 thousand.
The Pittsburg Visible
that was made between 1898 and 1901 (one of which is my machine) is sometimes
referred to as the “model no. 9”. This model designation was never put on any
machine, but it is used in the serial number list of Burghagen to distinguish
this model from the later number 10.
There are some minor
differences between the Daugherty and the Pittsburg Visible no. 9 (mainly
different decals) and some more important differences between these two
typewriters and the Pittsburg No. 10. The number 10 was stronger and a better
typer (see Martin 1949, p. 114), and because of the use of normal shift keys it
also had a different appearance than the previous models, which had nickeled
shift keys. For more differences between the models, see: the Virtual Typewriter Museum.
I still doubt whether
I should buy newly made nickeled ribbon spools. At some time, a former owner of
this Pittsburg typewriter replaced the original nickeled spools with regular
spools. Newly made nickeled replacement spools do exist and would bring the typewriter back to it original appearance, but I am afraid they
would look too shiny on my otherwise not so shiny machine.
Today I went to another meeting of the German typewriter collectors in Köln. It was nice to see familiar faces and to practice German while walking past the trunks of the cars, filled with all kinds of typewriters. Here are the pictures, so you get an idea. I had the impression that most sellers had to take the vast majority of their machines back home again. Only those who put "realistic" prices were able to sell some.
