1929 Remington Portable #3
platen advance lever
missing stud replaced with a nail
I recently acquired a 1929 Remington portable 3. I now have a 1, 2 & 3 of these, and it’s interesting to see the slight differences as the design was changed. The model 3 I found was missing a small stud from the carriage advance lever. I knocked out the embedded bit and hammered in a small nail in its place. That fixed the problem, and the typewriter is now working well – amazing for a 90 year old machine! The model 3 has a slightly wider platen than the #2, which was slightly wider than #1. The #1 had a simple advance mechanism that was much improved with the addition of the lever on model 2, which carried over to model 3. Model 2 had the original lifting typebars, which are gone in model 3, in favour of a low panel on the top front that conceal the slightly raised typebars. I assume this saved money in manufacturing, by eliminating the lifting mechanism. Something was lost however, in the way of a very interesting and unique feature. Model 3 also introduced a margin release key and fixed tabs, marked with a red keytop, as Olivetti became well known for later on with the Lettera 22. But Remington was first!
1922 Remington Portable #1
1926 Remington Portable #2 (note German keyboard)
model 1 side view with lifting typebars
nathanguitars 
Hammered it in, huh? Clever! I think this is a common problem on this model and similar ones. As I always say, every typewriter has an Achilles’ heel.
Ooh, clever fix! These are quite delightful to operate. I feel lucky to have found a very nice one back before I had any idea what it was and got it re-rubbered. Well worth the effort to have them tying nicely again. (:
Hi Don –
Believe it or not I have one of these too – let me know if you are interested in acquiring it. Had lunch with Chris Chan and Brian Palmquist last week. Regards,
Jon
Jon, Get typing!
Hello, thank you for the useful post comparing some of the features of this typewriter. Can I double check – did you find that the return arm of the Remington 2 and 3 are the same in each machine? I have a #3 that is missing a working return arm, and I have my eye on a #2 that has a good looking return arm being sold for parts.
I don’t recall that accurately but they looked similar.
Thanks