Some new old ribbon tins II

Some more eye-candy for the starving typewriter-collecting community.

Pelikan, a well-known brand, and still in business. The logo has altered over the years. Here, you see the pelican feeding four of her chicks. The number of chicks has gradually been reduced, reaching a sad single chick, thus reflecting demography changes in contemporary Western societies.

ALPINA. Häusler-Zepf, office machine dealer in Olten, Switzerland.

Beautiful Japanese style, from Leetsdale, PA.

Here is "The Smith"!

Fine Service Brand, produced by the Stenno Ribbon & Carbon Mfg. Co., Portland, Oregon.

Alpad is a traditional German brand, and the company is still in business. It can provide you with typewriter ribbons of different dimensions, even for your odd Adler 7 or Remington 6 upstrike. 

Gallus, a French tin. Gallus being the "Gaulle", and accordingly we see what I believe to be the profile of Vercingetorix, leader of the Gallic tribes rebelling against the Roman armies of Jules Cesar. 

Rümelinsplatz 5 is an address in Basel, Switzerland. This relatively recent ribbon box lists some major brands for which the 13mm ribbon fit.

Some new old ribbon tins

After the gigantic Ruf typewriter, now to some smaller, yet essential items for typing: ribbon tins. Here are some I picked up locally over the last couple of months, both in Switzerland and Austria.

Technically speaking, the above is not a typewriter ribbon "tin", but a little carton box. It contained a new old 16mm ribbon, quite rare these days. At least I don't see them often. It's a silk ribbon, which it top quality.

This one I like a lot, the two gold strips on top and left even seem hand-painted. Maybe by Oskar Vogler himself? Swiss, from Wintherthur.

This one is  a true classic, and J.F. Pfeiffer ephemera turn up often in Switzerland. J.F. Pfeiffer was a big company dealing in office furniture and machines, based in Zurich, but with branches all over Switzerland. The logo is a piper (= "Pfeifer" in German).

This Helvetica Spezial-Farbband is pure Swissness. The logo is Helvetia herself, a female personification of Switzerland. You see a similar depiction on Swiss 1 franc coins.

There is is: the ribbon fit for a Hermes typewriter. This is one of the most frequent questions I get over my website (I would rate it No. 2, just after: How much is my typewriter worth?): which ribbon for my Hermes typewriter? The answer is: 13 mm. Standardized since 1926. Which is half inch, roughly.

top view of the box described above. also not a "tin" in the strict sense, but made of some plastic.

British Made Columbia Classic

This one I couldn't place really. Despite of the English name of "Three Stars", my guess is it was made in Switzerland. Bachmann, e.g., is a frequent name in Switzerland (King is not). The tin itself looks very similar to the Pfeiffer one shown above. 

That's all for today. To be continued.

Huuuuulk

Definitely not a portable (at least not according to common sense, but yes, I had to lift it in order to take pictures), this Hermes Ambassador adapted for the Ruf bookkeeping system keeps amazing me. Built ca. 1966. Motor was spinning all right, but couldn't get the keyboard to function. The book-keeping part can be detached easily, allowing the use as regular Hermes Ambassador.

Facit Made in Poland

came in original box

QUERTY keyboard - with the "@" sign, hurray! - I keep showing this to European friends in order to prove that typewriters already could do e-mail.

next to the Olympia SM9 - some similarity in the outward appearance, isn't there?

nice hood

Made in Poland!

Detail: you can see by the logo that the typeslugs were made by Ransmayer & Rodrian

FACIT design as we know it

Typewriter Piece by John Cage

performed by Wooden Cities in Buffalo, NY, 2012. See also here.

And now for something completely different

If you can make it to Basel until tomorrow, go see this mighty plant.
More info: http://titanwurz.unibas.ch/index.html
More photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/shordzi/sets/72157632048472175/show/

Typewriter in Fraktus

After Anvil, there is Fraktus!

via orf.at

Lady and Gentlemen, your expertise for typewriter identification, please.

xmas is now

According to Starbucks corporation, christmas starts now, in the first half of November. Why do I say that? Christmas carols and the barista's santa claus hat led me to this conclusion.

So here is a little advance on your christmas presents (which should incidentally cheer you up for nanowrima):

 

poor people's typewriter

Back in the days, typewriters were precious and costly items. In Switzerland, someone came up with the idea to construct a typewriter for the less fortunate. The idea was simple: cut production costs by saving a certain number of keys. This way, the typewriter would become affordable for everybody. The market is good, it provides for everyone!

Here is an example of a poor people's typewriter, graciously provided by the Alfred R. Wepf collection:
  

replacing my Yost's ink-pad

Beware! There is two white mice in this post. Now read on.

Not long ago I was lucky to get this beautiful Yost No. 11. First action was to fix the drawing cord, which kept me busy for one hour. Once done, the carriage moved as needed. The type-slugs of this 1910+ typewriter rest on an ink-imbued felt ring. The latter had dried out over the decades (it might well be one century). So I tried to fix this.

Still not at its best, but a nice result for this Yost 11 with replaced and self-inked pad. Here is for details:

The original inkpad

pretty hard, 100 year old felt

the new material, pressed felt. i was lucky to get a piece with the perfectly fitting diametre.

original colour: blue

The old felt-ring came off fine, scraping the remains with a screwdriver to finish the job.

fitting the new felt pad

I applied this several times over, and let it soak in over night. This is special ink used for colouring metal. The other base type of ink is for use with rubber types.

putting back the ring with the new ink-pad was somewhat tricky. i managed by fixating the typebars with a cord, pulling them towards the middle. after which i could fit the ring back without problems.

I can't believe I own this cool machine!

Thanks for watching, and Happy Typing!