Brother JP-3, Profile 720 model
Mint condition, rare JP-3 model with parallel action carriage shift, push button ribbon selector, wide carriage and all original papers. I have nowhere to put this, but if it had been regular carriage and $20, who knows?
P.S. more photos of the paperwork. It was made in 1967, and had a rapid paper feeder!
Filed under Thrift shop finds, Typewriters
It was the sort of night that would have kept even Sherlock Holmes from taking to the streets in search of his arch rival. But the directors had important business to discuss, and so they made their way to the boardroom through the wild wind and sheets of cold rain. More than one umbrella was destroyed that night, and its owner subsequently drenched.
The meeting convened and discussion commenced regarding the label of the new product – Director’s Superior Ale. This was to be the greatest beer launch in the history of Courage, the foremost of British Breweries.
Simultaneously, on the other side of Mayfair in the City of London, the directors of another great British enterprise, Peek Freans, were meeting to discuss a new concept in biscuits; the boxed assortment.
Both meetings went on for hours as the directors debated furiously over the respective products. Oddly enough, each meeting eventually hung on one last issue – the colours of the packaging. At both meetings there was a complete lack of agreement among the members. Some argued for blue, some for red, some for black and white.
It was then that the biggest lightening strike in history happened, electrifying half of London in one great thunderous boom. At both meetings the directors were knocked off their chairs and sent to the floor tingling with the electrical pulse that killed one hundred unfortunate horses standing outdoors in puddles.
The directors all staggered back to their tables and after a few minutes they resumed their separate discussions. It was at this moment that it became clear to all concerned that the perfect colours would be purple, red and gold. It was promptly put to vote, and unanimous consent was reached at both tables.
The following month the new products were released. It didn’t take long before cries of corporate espionage were being shouted back and forth across the city. However, both sides eventually dropped their accusations when it became abundantly clear that the general public seemed to be buying both products at exceptionally high rates.
Before long other breweries were engaging in discussions with other biscuit manufacturers with an aim to recreating the strange synergy that occurred when one consumed Peek Freans Assorted Cremes with a bottle of Directors Superior Ale, but despite great efforts, this was never to be duplicated.
Filed under Beer, Books and Short Stories
beautiful curves
More about the machine: a close inspection reveals this is really well built, like indestructible! The mechanics of the carriage are unlike most every other typewriter; it has large dished bearings which hold a thick stainless steel bar that carries the carriage. Basically a larger and much stronger version of the Lettera 22. It feels like a 22 as well, with the precise but soft touch. Quiet, too, for a typewriter! From the small number of these that I’ve ever seen in the shops, they weren’t terribly popular, and perhaps were quite expensive. One can imagine this would have been high priced – it appears to be made with no expense spared. Even the case is different; a truncated pyramid shape when stood upright. By the serial number the TWDB says it was made in 1961 or 1962.
carriage runs on this round rail – note the huge pinch rolls
innards
oversized platen for this scale of machine
elegant keys
large folding paddle like lever is easy to push
right side – note the scooped lower edge! So subtle..
Filed under Thrift shop finds, Typewriters
I recently attended a birthday party for a friend who turned 80. It was a multi-generational event, where ages ranged from 80 to 8. I decided to bring along a pair of typewriters and set up a station where people could type messages to the honoree. Expecting there would be plenty who were familiar with typewriters, I was confident this would be a hit. The typewriters I brought were: a Smith Corona 5 SS (branded Eaton’s Prestige) and a Brazilian Hermes Baby. I set them up, loaded the paper, put up a card explaining the idea, and waited.
type-a-greeting station
After a while it was obvious the older crowd was less than enthused, but not so the younger crowd (or as it happened to be, the youngest person).
Youthful typist
My friend’s youngest granddaughter soon took up semi-permanent occupation of the Silent Super Station (SSS) and with instruction from a helpful aunt began to peck out line after line.
At first disheartened at the lack of interest from the adults, retrospection lightened my heavy heart. Typospherians, the uplifting news is that our beloved machines will live on via the youngest generation! We must hope this signals a resurgence that will redeem our compulsive buying, cleaning, tuning and doing whatever it is we do; putting them on shelves or writing books, poems and other nonsense. Though the typewriter may be of little interest to those for whom they were once ubiquitous it may yet prove to be a great interest to those who don’t yet even recognize them.
So I declare my mini-type-in a success. It all depends on interpretation. Several brave adults did manage to type messages, and I salute their courage.
a brave adult
I leave you with a fragment…
message to Grandpa
P.S. SC SS5 is highly recommended for type-in use!
Filed under Type-in, Typewriters
FROM VINTAGE CARS OF VICTORIA:
(I’m an assistant producer…. and website manager for this project.)
Two Saturday’s ago, August 20th, we shot Episode Four in my TV series “Vintage Cars of Victoria”. This show features three Corvettes, a C1 and two C2’s. That’s lingo f…
Source: Episode 4 in the Works
Filed under Uncategorized
Remington Portable 2
for sale at thrift shop $69.99
♠
Classic VW Beetle
seen on local street yesterday
♣
Antique Chevrolet
seen on lot of repair garage
♥
Corvette Sting Ray
same lot, just completed restoration
♦
Filed under Typewriters, Vintage cars
Elvis with his phonograph/amplifier
When I discovered long ago that I shared my birthday with Elvis, it came as something of a shock. Despite knowing that millions upon millions of people had the same birthday, January 8, somehow I relished the thought of Elvis and I as birthday buddies. When I was a young teen I even bought several of his current hits on 45, including Return to Sender, She’s the Devil In Disguise, and One Broken Heart for Sale. Two of those must have been on one 45, but I can’t recall which, nor the song that filled out the other missing side. I also had such hits as PT 109 by Johnny Horton, The Twist by Chubby Checker, and Hello Dolly by Satchmo. I’m slightly embarrassed by all this, with the exception of Louis Armstrong, who I still revere as a true musical legend. This may be apostasy with regard to Elvis, but I have this sinking feeling that Elvis’s fame, though seemingly immortal, will one day fade away to a footnote. Only his early stuff will, and should, endure as great music; the rest should be forgotten.
That being said, Elvis still exerts a strange fascination which was piqued yesterday in the aftermath of my examining an interesting old portable phonograph in a thrift shop.
it resembled a typewriter, but wasn’t
Opening the lid I saw it was a phonograph, and a very interesting one indeed. It was a Perpetuum Ebner Musical 5v Luxus, as near as I can determine.
Rex, stands for the King
I took a picture of it and went home. Later I did some research. Now I wish I’d bought it, but when I returned this morning it had been sold. Perhaps another buyer had Googled it right on the spot and seen what it was! Maybe I’m fortunate however, seeing as how I really have no use for it, and nowhere to put it.
The point is of course, Elvis had one in Germany. He used it not only for listening to records but as an amplifier for his guitar.
What sort of look is this? Puzzlement, curiosity, or disdain?
the one that got away
Filed under Technology, Thrift shop finds
Today we hiked down a long hill to the ocean, climbed up a short hill and sat on a rock outcrop in the sun.
Way below waves lapped at the pebbly beach, as families, kids and dogs wandered in and out of the picture.
I sketched, T meditated, & M read.
Then we climbed back up the long hill.
From time to time we all undertake tasks that should best be left to those who know how. Yet still we persist with this irrational behaviour. As some people have pointed out, that is what makes us great! Or sometimes we fail…
watch attached to piezo pickup
But, we learn, nevertheless. Yesterday I learned a lot about Seiko watch movement 7006A. The watch, my latest thrift store project – a 1972 Seiko “Monaco” blue face, was all cleaned up and running, but it was losing 5 minutes daily. Since I had figured out how to open the one piece waterproof case already, I decided to speed up the balance wheel a bit. To help me with this task, which from experience I know is very hit and miss without instruments, I found a free watch timing program called Biburo. Further searching provided instructions in English (Biburo is from Japan). I scrounged around for the necessary equipment to make it work, and found an old cheap piezo guitar pickup that conveniently plugged into my Yamaha USB audio interface. When set on full gain it was able to detect the beating of the watch.
original timing was slow
Biburo, when you get it right will show the ticks as a series of dots running across a graph. Slanting up means the watch is fast, down is slow. Horizontal is perfect timing.
yamaha USB audio interface
I tweaked the timing lever a few times and in no time I had the watch running right on time, at least when laid flat. Then I noticed that in the instructions it said that if you had two parallel lines on the screen it meant the watch was out of beat. That is to say, the balance wheel turns unequally in rotating. To adjust this is another simple task, as the Seiko 7006A has a beat adjustment. I began to push this lever a tiny bit, first one way, then another. It didn’t seem to be responding well so I was resolving that I would just leave well enough alone when I noticed the watch had ground to a halt. Nothing would get it to restart. Now I suppose the rational answer is that there was something wrong in there to begin with and whatever I did, that certainly didn’t cause the watch to cease beating. But of course I cursed my luck. Then I decided that, what the hell, I might as well see if I could take it apart and clean it up, and perhaps dislodge whatever dirt or errant tiny hair of dust might have jammed the works.
my work-tray
So I spent the entire day discovering the wonders of Seiko engineering. I must say, it is an amazing machine as watches go, especially the bi-directional auto winding mechanism. However, I wasn’t able to fix it, and after many hours I decided to see if I could swap it out for another 7006A I had in a box. It turned out they were almost the same, except the donor had 19 jewels, versus the 17 on the first. The main difference was that this case being one piece, requires a different way of releasing the stem, and this piece doesn’t come on the regular watch movements. I was able to remove the tiny lever however, and install it in the donor movement, since the base plates were identical.
testing in various positions
I’ve got the movement assembled and running, and am testing it now in various positions. It will not be perfect, since it probably needs a total overhaul and cleaning, but at least it still runs, which means I can wear it. If I recover some patience that I exhausted on this, I may strip the original movement down and see if a cleaning and lubrication gets it going again. If it breaks, at least I have learned something about these watches.
Yesterday we closed the office here at Nathanguitars, due to various pressing issues:
sketch #1 – June 27/16
Today is more of the same, only I don’t know yet just what that will be precisely. However, directly after breakfast we began a short series of poems typed on index cards:
Filed under Fishing, Poetry, Sketching, Typewriters, VW Vans
