u/Pete1885

Did not realize Don Nichols passed away this year in Ohio.

His web site is not longer active. Bought a very nicely serviced machine from him about 12 years ago. He was very nice to purchase from.

I did not see any postings, here, about his passing.

He also had over 200 You Tube videos that are still available. Under "Don Nichols"

https://www.youtube.com/@donnichols2589/videos

Rest In Peace, Don. Belated condolences to his family.

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/toledoblade/name/donald-nichols-obituary?id=60525872

I like making changes to some of my machines.

When I do, I try to get my inspiration from colours in Nature.

.

Picked up the 1956-made Tower Quiet Tabulator...made by Smith-Corona for Sears & Roebuck.

All in, including shipping and a brand-new silk ribbon...set me back only $ 78 USD total.

Its case was in very decent shape and still had the original user-manual inside.

Types as good as my 1957 S-C Silent Super.

All it needed was a deep cleaning, type alignment, and a bit of custom touch-ups to the seafoam green paint here and there.

.

Colours of the Royal Futura 800. Mist Grey - Cocoa - Americana - Meadow Green - Periwinkle Blue.

All have been modified by me to have their ribbon colour selector lever made accessible from the front cover...except for the Periwinkle Blue one which is still waiting for a spare "lever" from some parts machine in the future.

A bit of disclosure : The Meadow Green one started out its life as a $ 20 Mist Grey machine. I was not willing to spend the $ 200-300 folks were asking for a green one...so made my own with some satin-finish green-paints in 2 hues.

.

Got this Hermes 10 electric a couple of years back. Paid $ 200 USD at a time when retailers and flippers were asking $ 300-500 for a H-10.

It just needed a deep clean, new o-ring belts, and a new silk B/R ribbon.

It is my 2nd. best electric machine in my collection.

It has a gentle power-return stroke...not the "battering ram" many electrics can be.

'

This sure cracks me up when I see it.

Typewriter folks just do not need to worry about that dreaded "auto-correct" feature...

.

Picked up this 1958 Royal Administrator and a case for it.

This is the 12" wide carriage version of the Royal Diana typewriter. Diana was originally an all German made machine.

After a deep clean and service (DIY) it types like a dream.

I like the 1958 so much, I picked up a 1959 only a week or so later. I do not have a case for my 2nd. machine but it gets a nice dust cover my wife makes for me.

See the 1959 in the last two photos, below.

There is a script difference of the label of "Administrator" on the two machines. The 1958 has a more lustrous paint job with the 1959 being a bit more matt in its finish.

.

I was able to bring this Erika Daro (Model 40) into the States from the UK. All-in including shippiing set me back $ 48 USD. This was before all the tariff non-sense.

It was made in 1976 and is a very nice, quick, nimble manual typewriter regardless of its plastic cowlings.

When it rotates onto my desk for its 2-3 day use-cycle, I really enjoy those days.

Honestly, I would have been happy to pay $ 48 just for its case.

.

Olympia 3 - Made In Japan...

Was able to pick up this Olympia 3, made in Japan in the 1974-1977 time frame. Made by Nakajima. Spent around $ 85 USD for it about 3 years ago.

It looks a lot on the outside like an Olympia Traveller, but its back panel has more of an Olivetti styling to it.

The internals are nothing like an Olympia Traveller and it has a definite Japanese feel to it when typing. Still a very competent typewriter with touch-control, bi-colour ribbon, and a Tabulator with factory-fixed Tab stops. Full featured for an ultra-portable.

Last photo below shows the Olympia 3 next to my 1968 Hermes Baby to give a size comparison.

They also made a version called the Olympiette 2 which looks just like my machine but with no Tab function.

.

This is my very BIG Olympia electric typewriter.

It is the Model SGE-A62...which is just a variant of the SGE-50 line. Some speculate this variant without a paper injector nor a paper support might have been for typewriter schools, etc. Less for students to break.

This electric was made in West Germany in 1977.

The SGE-A62 weighs in at a whopping 52.3 lbs. Compared that to the Olympia SGE1 at a hefty 38,3 lbs.

I won this "beast" of an electric machine on Shop Goodwill for only $ 9.99 USD plus another $ 32 for S/H.

I use for for long typing sessions of final draft work.

It is very quiet for an electric and the power return stroke, though forceful, is manageable. I think it has some sort of air-break damper at the end of the power stroke to scale-down the "battering ram" effect many big electrics have.

Here are some photos of the "beast" and with some side-by-side views with other Olympia machines to give a true view of size-scale,

I call the last photo... "Grandpa & The Kids".

.

I did not purposely start out buying so-called birth-year typewriters but I ended up with two (2) of them in my collection of way-to-many machines.

I am 72 years old, having a birth-year of 1954.

I bought these two machines based on condition and did not know their manufacture date until I had them in-hand.

My 1954-made Underwood Quiet Tab Deluxe was the 2nd. machine in my collection.

And my 1954-made Princess-Matic was the 61st. machine in my collection. This one is a re-badge of the Princess 300, issued as part of the Will Scheidegger typing school home-study course. I brought this one in from the UK to the States for $ 108 USD all-in including shipping costs. The Princess 300 seem to be sold here in the States for obscene prices of $ 300, 400, or more. I call in my poor-man's Princess 300.

.

Just in case you are in need of a case...

Once in a while I will buy a machine that is missing its case. Usually because the machine is in excellent condition and hard to pass up.

With time, I found perfect-fit cases for my orphan machines.

First machine is my Torpedo 18s which fits perfectly in a spare Underwood-Olivetti 21 case.

Second machine is my Halda P in a Sears electric typewriter case (made in Japan).

.

Took me a few years to put together my little collection of Facit (and Addo) typewriters.

All are manuals with the exception of the electric shown in the last photo.

.

Love my 1960-made AMC manual typewriter, which is a re-badge of the Alpina AK-24 model.

It is a big and heavy portable with a CR lever made of nylon and which rotates 90-degrees for storage in its case. My case was pretty trashed so I restored it and gave it some new colours. It was originally all grey in colour.

This machine was purchased new by a high school senior student. It followed him to college, then to the seminary, and all throughout is career as a pastor. He even used it in his retirement on a daily basis until his passing around 2001.

His HS senior photo is shown as the last photo, attached below.

I bought the machine from his surviving daughter 10 years later when she realized it had not come out of the closet since her father's passing.

I have a standing agreement with her family that should they ever want the machine back in their family, they can have it for the same $$'s I spent to add it to my home. Figured a grand-child or great grand-child might want it in the future.

.

I find myself enjoying the hobby of restoring typewriter cases as much (or maybe even more) than getting typewriters back to 100% working.

Here are some I have done for some of the machines in my collection.

Wonders what some cans of spray-paint and time/patience can accomplish.

.

Had a case come with its leather closure-strap torn off the case body. Case is for my Imperial Good Companion 5.

I did a bit of some "out-of-the-box" thinking and came up with this solution that did not involve any sewing.

.

Got a Remington Deluxe 5 portable in and found out the carriage return arm spring was broken and missing pieces.

Rather than trying to find the right sized torsional spring, I just used a linear spring. Repair took less than 5 minutes.

I also like how the new spring gives the machine a bit of a steam-punk look.

.

Another one of my Olympia Travellers from 1979,

Done up in "Purple Iris" just for fun.

.

Another Olympia Traveller...done up by me in "Sweet Mango" colour scheme.

The real surprise is when the machine turned out to be cursive script and it only cost me $ 95 all-in to bring it into the States from the UK.

.