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Olivetti pmc elite 44 on eBay UK for £65

Having wondered about the Jet Age's influence on the naming of Cameron's Webster XL-747, you have to wonder about the Space Age influence on these two Sottsass Olivettis. They could easily have been the first typewriters in space, if styling is anything to go by. I have never seen anything like them before, and now two at once.

The leather-look trim on satin metallic echoes SLR camera design, the covering aids grip. But the font on the keys of the machine above is pure sci-fi and much more at home here than it was on the Valentine. For these reasons, and my complete lack of a portable Olivetti, I'm tempted... if only they weren't priced so highly. 

The pmc elite is the better looking (and has a silver/black, leatherette case!), but the DL has the Olivetti logo up front. Is the pmc a licensed clone?

I think they are stylistic variants based on the prolific Lettera 32 print engine.
The best info I can find is on DE SCHRIJFMACHINIST.

Olivetti DL on eBay UK for £90

Pringles

The individual ribbon covers on my 1947 Underwood Noiseless 77 are one-piece plastic, not two-piece painted and chromed steel like the older Remington Noiseless Portables I have, or the Remington Rand Model 1, for that matter. Because the ribbons wind onto a built-in core without the need for a spool, flat ribbon covers are useful in keeping the ribbon neatly wound and coiled. You can see from the picture above how haphazardly the ribbon's wound.

These plastic tops are warped like Pringles. Is this the reason the coils of ribbon are bunching up in places? I think the tops are molded thermo-plastic and I'm wondering if weighting them on flat surface after a minute in boiling water might help to set them back as flat discs. Advice welcome...

PS: Turns out Pringles are on Blogger too!

Mid-Atlantic 77

Back in July, I shared photos of three typewriters which cost very little money. All eBay. All fell in the "nothing to lose" price bracket:

• First, a British-made Corona-Empire. Approx £9. Works fine. I don't like it - not sure I'd want to inflict it on someone else, so probably won't sell it. I may give it away. Then again, I might just need more time to get used to its ways. At least it doesn't take up much room.
• Another Brit. This time Hull's finest Imperial Good Companion Model 5. £0.99p. Despite pristine paint and innards, this typewriter had been dropped and the soft case didn't offer much protection. I spent a long time fixing the space bar and it will work properly... one day. I can't complain, the seller rescued it form a skip. Right now, it is a 'work in progress'.
• Finally, an Underwood Noiseless 77. £15. I just picked this up from its half-way house where it has languished for the last three months. I already had a brace of earlier Remington Noiseless Portables and their awkward cousin, the Remington Rand Model 1. Three heavier, less quiet machines you'll never find. And of course the Remington Noiseless was an Underwood Noiseless made under licence. You have to love it when something is made and sold with such hope and promise, despite falling so short on most counts. It is not really a Remington, nor is it Noiseless in any generally accepted sense of the word, and Portable? Put it this way, I wouldn't like to have to run for a train with it! Surely, this explains why a genuine Underwood-badged 77 seemed such a good idea.

First impressions: surprise! Pretty much like a Remington. Solid and crisp controls for everything except typing, which hesitance of touch is an acquired taste - that's the famous 'silent' treatment at work - it is pretty amazing how it works.  This post-war model has the finger-friendly plastic key tops and stealth matt paint job. Compared to the Remington incarnation, the return lever has the élan of a fencepost. And the bobbin-tops are plastic too. But this WAS 1947, even in the USA - post-war austerity and all that. Still, it is built like a tank and to an impressively high standard. I'd do a typecast to show how it types, but it is late and it would make too much noise.

Two anomalies: the $ key produces a £ sign, and the cent key produces the slashed c it promises. Obviously there was some confusion in the final assembly about which side of the Atlantic this one was headed for - so the assembler compromised. Or was it a cunning US imperialist plot to assert a new currency on an unsuspecting British public. 64 years later and we still aren't ready to part with our £.

No NaNoWriMo

I'm not sure I have a novel in me, so no NaNoWriMo for me. But I know there are a lot of writers out there sharpening their pencils, oiling their various writing irons and generally limbering up in readiness for some serious wordsmithing in November's Na(tional)No(vel)Wri(ting)Mo(nth). Brave souls. Good luck.

My second cousin writes a little and he shared a link today to what I thought was a useful looking mag, especially aimed at aspiring writers. If you are interested, you can get a paid hardcopy subscription or the e-pub for free. Words with Jam.

Meanwhile, here's a back issue to wet your whistle:

Open publication - Free publishing - More writing

Stormy weather pancakes

Only made this a few times but it was very tasty. It was howling a gale the first time, hence the name. 

Typecast on a Remington Model 5