Instructions for the unpacking, assembling, operating and care of the "His Master's Voice" spring driven portable model 101G etc.

This leaflet must be delivered with Instrument to the purchaser.

With text-only explanations on the unpacking, operation and care of the instrument.

Re-created new with the original text, printed on 160g paper, ivory white, then folded and cut to size.

In case you happen to have an HMV 101 portable gramophone that is missing its manual; it is downloadable here as a pdf for easy reference on a computer or downloadable as a printable pdf. To re-create, simply print it double sided on an A3 page, fold over and cut it to size.

Not essential, but it makes the gramophone just that little more 'complete'  :)

New decal for an old machine

Having re-covered the "His Master's Voice" HMV101 portable gramophone in new Rexine a while back, the finishing touch now is a new trademark.

When re-covering the gramophone also a new tray was fitted. The old tray was still in decent condition with intact trademark image. Just couldn't bring myself to destroy that and re-cover it, so then made a new replacement tray. This also made a few modifications possible to allow records being stored with their sleeves. The whole instrument then had fresh blue Rexine again, but no longer the characteristic trademark painting of the listening dog in front of the gramophone.

Finally went ahead and bought from South America new decals. This Ebay seller has a fairly large range of restoration decals for gramophones, typewriters, radios and telephones. Luckily the HMV trademark image and text as was used on this HMV101 turned out to be pretty much identical to the type used on the HMV157 and that was available. Shipped quickly, well packed and I have to say the graphics really are very nice.

The new decal compared to the original on the (faded) original record tray. The new has shiny gold lettering whereas the original lettering is more yellow. It may have been gold in '29, but in '14 it is yellow. (Having it on the machine, I am guessing it was originally yellow lettering instead of gold and for a reason. With the lid slanted forward, the gold lettering on the 101 is dark and nearly invisible. On the 157 it would be tilted to the back toward the light and shine.)

With the decal came a few snippets of decal to test out the process. These were applied on the small woodblock that was also used to test the Rexine. All that is needed is some warm water (with a small drop of soap) and a cloth. Ideally also a bottle of Microsol and a brush. 

Cut the decal to size, soaking in the saucer it very quickly becomes loose and can be slid from the backing paper in place onto the surface. Techniques probably vary on timings, but applying Microsol after letting the decal dry a bit will then dissolve the decal material. This leaves the ink of the image and reduces and blurs the shine of the decal sheet as well as settles the decal into the profile of the target surface. This worked surprisingly well and luckily did not attack or dissolve the Rexine.

Cutting around the image leaves the least amount of decal sheet, taking approximate measure of where it needs to end up. This is a rather large decal and needed care to not wrinkle or fold, but after applying can still be moved around a bit to fix in the right position.

With the decal on the new record tray, very faintly the shine of the outline of the decal sheet can be seen. The painting itself is also a large surface area with relatively thick ink, making it harder to conform well to the Rexine surface. As recommended on the bottle, several applications of Microsol with some time between were needed to blur out the sheet edges and make the decal blend in.

Result is now a bright blue HMV101 with an equally bright trademark. Looking the part again!

(For gramophone anoraking: the new record tray is a slightly modified design to also take records with sleeve. It has smaller and narrow hinge-blocks instead of the larger triangles. Also the sides of the tray were made very thin from thick card to have space for the width of a sleeve. Also the hole for the spindle is larger in the new tray than it is the original design. And of course the deck of the original machine was also blue and not lacquered.)

Seasonality of portable typewriters

Over several decades the portable typewriter is advertised as a Christmas gift. Starting from at least the twenties right through to the end of the typewriter era, there are full page Christmas advertisements for typewriters. (A very large and illustrative selection was posted last December on Rob Messenger's oztypwriter blog.) These promote the portable typewriter as a gift for private home use.

With the impressively expanded serial number page for Remington at the typewriterdatabase, there are monthly serial numbers for some of the portable machines. E.g after September 1928, there is a consecutive serial numbering for the Remington Portable typewriter, a type that is advertised as a Christmas gift.

To what extent was the portable typewriter actually a gifting item then at that time. Did the boy indeed get it? If the portable typewriter was significantly a gifting item, then there should be some visible seasonality in the production numbers.

Taking the serial numbers for the Remington Portable from the database and plotting the size of the monthly blocks as a volume yields the graph below. This suggests that at least for 1929, the monthly increments were done by choosing every month a starting number. The monthly volumes are suspiciously nicely rounded numbers; 1000 or 1100. After summer 1930, the numbers start to suggest consecutive numbering, i.e. they probably more closely represent monthly production volumes. (The sharp drop in block size in the summer of 1930 is a bit too late to attribute it to a likely sharp drop in volume sold after October 1929.)

Looking at the overall chart, there seems to be no clear annual pattern in production volume.

Even when allowing for a longer time from manufacture to actual consumer purchase than there is today, this would surely not be longer than 12 months. The distribution and warehousing also then would have been able to route a machine to the purchaser within no more than a few months. A typewriter was too expensive an item to make to stock, would take up too much capital. 

There is perhaps a suggestion in the graph that most are produced in the first half of the year. That could then mean that time from production to sale was around 6 months and the majority of machines is sold for Christmas. An alternative explanation would be the start of the school season being a driver for purchases, with a couple of months lead-time from production to purchase.

The numbers for 1933 however are concentrated in the second half of the year, making it less likely that there really is an annual pattern. Also the volumes become relatively small after 1931 for this type. Overall the graph does not give much insight into the effect of advertising the machine as a Christmas gift. It looks a bit random. At most it could be concluded that there is no clear indication of seasonality in the serials for the #2 and #3 Portable.

With the #2 and #3 numbers trailing off, perhaps another machine would be likely to be a home gifting item. E.g. the Compact Portable of that period. Taking its monthly serial numbers from the database and plotting the size of the monthly blocks gives the graph below.

Again there is no clear annual pattern in the monthly volumes. It may be that the graph is shifted by one (first or last of month), but even then there is no consistent production peak correlating with December.

Ergo the gifting of a typewriter for Christmas may have caused a surge in sales for Christmas, but the monthly serial number blocks do not show effect of this in annual production patterns.

Not sure if the boy did get it...

(A very impressive resource is the typewriterdatabase. As already remarked by Ted upon his expanding the Corona page, the data can contain answers and hints for many more and more varied questions than the dating of a machine.)

Royal Standard 3 flatbed on the ambulance train

A while back Spider shared an image from the Marktplaats listing for an old Royal Standard 3 flatbed typewriter.

That was (and is) an odd number for a Royal flatbed. Not many turn up, not much widely known about the 3 flatbed. Made me notice then a short while back, when just such a Royal Standard 3 showed up in an old photograph in a magazine. In the image it is parked on top of the roll-up desk. Though small it is clearly visible as a Royal Standard 3 flatbed typewriter.

This is a photograph of the head doctor's office in one of the two ambulance trains that were constructed for the Dutch government in 1916. The Netherlands managed to stay neutral and out of The Great War, but did mobilize and prepare. As part of continuing preparations two 15-car hospital trains were constructed. The trains were paid for by donations organized by a national committee and offered to the government as a gift. The front-page of the September issue of De Prins shows the handing over ceremony at Amsterdam, with HRH Prince Hendrik, heads of the committee and remarkably the Greek consul present.

The trains were kept ready and fully stocked with supplies, but never used. The photograph below shows the trains at the Amsterdam Staatsspoorstation yard at their delivery in 1916.

The trains were scrapped already in 1919. They had been intended to be kept at hand also after the war ended to be useful in case of natural disasters, but the cost of their storage and the discovery that they had become 'incomplete' were cited as reasons to scrap. I.e. much of the equipment and supplies had 'gone missing'.

Would be interesting to know the history and provenance of the Royal Standard 3 in that listing. Was that perhaps a machine that was 'liberated' from one of the stored hospital trains almost a century ago?

Remington Portable #2 in red

Since getting this 1928 Remington Portable last May, it's now been cleaned up further and been generally mucked about with.

Took a bit of a chance then on a not-so-clear picture in the online listing. The machine did have the fancy paintwork as was visible in the photos, but also was very dirty, worn and abused as was not so visible in those photos.

Even after an initial cleaning of the machine and removing the odd carrying handle that was bolted onto the case, the machine still looked a bit of a project. Witness to the solid engineering of the people at Remington back then, the machine still typed a treat (allowing for effectively not having any feed rollers left).

Now that the machine is re-assembled with new feed rollers, re-covered platen and generally polished up - the machine looks better. The metal and paintwork still look their age, but I think now much more respectably so.

After several tries, the carriage functions fine again with the newly covered platen. Learned along the way; e.g. that a platen surface must not be too grippy. When adjusting paper, the sheet is drawn around more than half the platen surface, it works a bit like a belt-brake then when trying to straighten the paper. The heat-shrink tubing works well in practice - not too grippy, hard surface and nicely black.

The holes in the front of the case were closed-up with some Sugru. Have been experimenting a bit with this material and it really does stick to almost any surface. Also for re-building rubber parts and chipped feet it works well, but contrary to the claim made by Sugru it is not grippy. It is a bit elastic and very smooth and will have your machine skidding over the table with every carriage movement. Painting on a very thin layer of Plasti Dip adds grip then. For this case, the feet were gone too far and replaced by new PU stick-on feet of about the right size.

As probably with many of these machines, the original leather carrying handle was missing. Using the handle of the reference machine a new handle pattern was made and a new handle fitted. The result is not ideal, a second time I'll know how to do it right. The cheap leather belt I used was fake leather (very dense felt in middle) and I didn't have the right type of string for the stitching, but it looks credible and it works.

Pattern drawn on a bit of paper, glued to the belt and then cut out. Awl to make holes and then stitch around. Sealed the sides of the fake-leather with Plasti-Dip. The rusted metal brackets put up some resistance to being opened up for the new handle, but luckily it all bent and nothing broke off.

Opening the case, the machine is again mounted on its base with new rubber grommets and a new mounting screw on the rear-left corner. That mounting pillar had been broken off completely. A new mounting was made with an M4 screw with washer and the M4 nut seated firmly in the hole in the base (Sugru again). Also a reproduction instruction manual - striving for completeness. (And perhaps it can help prevent the case being forced down over the extended platen knob in the future.)

With the new rollers and platen the machine still types very nicely. The alignment of the type could still use some tweaking, but the stroke is very light and the carriage positively purrs when it is returned. Most of the rust is now gone, even though a lot of the nickel plating was also gone it again looks like a proper metal machine again. The carriage return-lever actually came out shiny as if new from under its decades of dirt and grime.

The paintwork was touched up only very little - it is a very hard finish to replicate. The machine has four layers of lacquer to create this finish as far as I can tell. All parts have an original (default) black finish, then the red background. To create the black cracked pattern, another layer of transparent lacquer is applied and then the black applied over the almost dry transparent layer.

Unfortunately a large area on the lifting-tray was damaged and flaking off. It is now camouflaged, but that spot still looks a bit botched. Other than that, still a very striking and special finish on a much used machine.

The machine looks like it was not only used, but also has been in a fight or two and did not come out well of those. E.g. there's a bit of a dent in the rear of the outer frame that suggests a serious knock.

Not sure what the origin of the keyboard is, could be Portuguese? It has a very complete set of diacritics (that type on the preceding position) and a key for the ç and ñ characters.

Overall very complete and usable. The only character that could still be nice to have on a machine these days is an @ sign.

Can only wonder how this little machine made its way around the globe.

Illustrations of the Balston word-writing machine

Came across some more pictures of the Balston machine, the new (in 1930) electric word writing typewriter written about earlier.

More detail of the 'keyboard' and a drawing of the appearance of the actual machine. To call it a keyboard doesn't do it justice really though, more an 'operator control panel' worthy of an aircraft. Probably sketched from a prototype that surely must have been built.

Drawing dated 1929, noted as being from the Balston Automatic Writing Machine Co. of 11 West (?) 42nd Street, New York. Not the luckiest year economically to launch such a new, expensive machine.

Overall it still looks like an unwieldy machine. Swanky offices though!

Tiny ad, tiny price, tiny typewriter