Friday 17 June 2011

Mint Imperial

...well, almost mint. Here's a second booklet hand-made by the cherubim in Typewriter Heaven along with the Antares Parva manual. This one is about a basket-shift tabulator from an outpost of Imperial's empire on England's East Coast*.


*Try saying that with a mouthful of Rice Crispies.

Disclaimer: publication not intended as a user guide or maintenance manual. 

6 comments:

  1. Wow! Great job, Rob. And it rewards very careful reading. Love it.

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  2. !!!!! -- Outstanding! An intelligent and also hilarious guide, beautifully produced (with such good choice of fonts, too...).

    I had no idea that this model was basket-shifted and had other goodies like key-set tabulator and tension control. I have an early Good Companion and a model 4, but see that I must upgrade to a model 6.

    The connections to Torpedo are interesting. I knew that the original GC was based on a carriage-shifted Torpedo design. This model 6 was apparently based on their basket-shift design, which is widely recognized as excellent. The carriage return lever is just the same shape that Torpedo used on these machines, way back in the early '30s.

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  3. Silly me, I meant model 5, of course.

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  4. I'm giving the 5 away to my sister as late birthday present and thought a little instruction might be useful - hence booklet.

    Michael: cheers!

    Richard: Thanks for the lovely comment.The old carriage shift 1940s Good Companion I have looks pretty similar to models up to, but not including the 5. The basket shift on the 5 is so smooth it feels like there's some hydraulics in the works somewhere. I wonder if Imperial borrowed the return lever from Torpedo via contemporary Imperial desktops like the 66? Must check. The fiddly flip-up levers of previous Good Companions don't compare.

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  5. Compare the return lever to the one on Alan Seaver's 1933 "Deutsche Remington" basket-shifted Torpedo portable. Not identical, but a similar concept.

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