First new typewriter in a while! Although early Remington Portable typewriters are not particularly rare, they're not too common in Europe. So when the opportunity came along to get one, for a reasonable sum too, sprang for it.
Not sure if these are very 'collectable', but I'd say it's a notable 'milestone' typewriter design. It represents an impressive feat of engineering that -accelerated by well-funded and good marketing- arguably defined the portable typewriter category for decades. (So deemed it worth finding that little bit of extra shelf-space for.)
This is not the very first model of the Portable, this machine NV10943 dates from July 1921 and the outer housing had just switched to flat-bottom with rubber feet instead of the dimples with cotter-pins. This specimen also has the second style of 2-hole type-guide, this update being phased in on-off over the July production (i.e. there are later July 1921 machines that have the early style).
One sign of an early Portable still there: no exposed shift-stop screws, plain side-wall of the outer frame.
On these early Portable machines, the serial number is stamped in the frame part of the machine, instead of in the outer shell - sensible. Also visible is another feature of all #1 Portables, the rear carriage rail is short - maybe even will allow for the bearing-cage to be slid off without completely loosening the rear rail.
Some of the #1 machines seen online are missing one of the 3-hole half-spools; they may actually only be missing the spool flange. This has come unstuck from its core and it's only luck that it is still with the machine.
Even though it already has some of the later features, this machine does still have the curved paper-table and doesn't have any supports.
Unfortunately, the line-spacing sprung roller is missing. Only the base of the spring is still there; broken off. The line-release lever had been replaced with a much later, #2 Portable lever (removed in above picture). This may be the cause of the line-spacing roller breaking, perhaps there are subtle differences in design beyond the length of the lever.
The early lifting-tray slides very smoothly in its guides, no play at all. The mounting to the lifting arms is different from later #1 models. The early mounting has a hex-nut.
For comparison, the #1 from 1924 in below picture has the lever fixed much the same way as the #2 Portable:
This above view of a late #1 also shows how the outer frame now gives access to single screws of the shift-stops. The #2 model also exposes the adjusting screw, so two scres per shift-stop. (Well, one is the baseline stop and the other is the shifted-stop, but let's call them both stop-blocks.) Just visible too is the sloped face of the ribbon-reverse knob -the early Portable has no automatic ribbon reverse (hence 3-hole spools are handy to show the user when it's time to reverse).
The shift-lock key has its own key-lever, entirely separate from the shift-key's lever.
Another quirk is that this machine has a regular, international keyboard with accents. The accent keys are however not dead-keys - typing an accent grave will index the carriage. In practice this won't have been an issue; to type e.g. "é" first press down the spacebar, then type e and then the accent and then let go of the spacebar.
The typewriter was briefly taken of its base to remove some dust.
Surprisingly, whilst the carriage rails are brightly nickeled, the internal mechanism of this specimen is mostly blackened. The bell, spring-drum and most of the rods and spacers are black.
As is to be expected, it shows signs of having been serviced such as that wrong long-lever line-release, and also has several spots where thick black paint was used to re-touch.
This Portable has, of course, a rock-hard platen and no functional line-feed, but other than that it all seems to work. Robust machines :)
Maybe to scout-round for a replacement line-feed roller and a correct pattern release lever, but first it goes on the storage shelf. Wrapped in plastic to await a later full cleaning and touching-up (and perhaps full repair, new rubber?).
So finally got one! An early Remington Portable, the start of a very long line of robust personal writing machines.
:-)
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