Little blue Magic Motor (and Outfit B)

A little bargain bought online last week. Postage actually came in at triple the purchase price, but still not too bad.

This is a little Meccano 'Magic Motor' in the pre-war blue colour. The printing code on the box dates this to 1938, correct for the blue motor with a mazac (zinc) pulley and this type 'A' of winding key.

Somebody has written '2/-' on the box in pencil. That will have been the price - so probably this was written on it in the shop already. This advert in the March 1938 issue of the Meccano Magazine confirmed that 2 shilling was indeed the price in '38. Not pennies, but not too expensive either and the cheapest motor on offer.

This is too good still to be repainted and works fine, it will go with the re-created 'blue & gold' outfit. This set of re-painted vintage parts has slowly grown. Over the past year the parts from lots that were too far gone and rusty were cleaned and repainted in the blue and gold scheme. To keep it all together and make it easy to use and store, a new box was created from paperboard sheets.

This box and the set of parts were based on the 1934 Outfit B. With 3D-printed pegs and clamps in a 'stringing-card', the parts are laid out the same way - it does have a certain 'presence' when opening the box.

For comparison, below is an image of the Outfit B from the '34 catalogue (this and more images in the NZMeccano gallery).

Something different with the newly created box, is that it's constructed as a two-layer box with a lift-out tray. This makes it practical to store any additional parts as they are periodically added to the blue and gold collection of parts. Quite a lot of parts have been added beyond the B...

There are actually two parts in the above image with their original finish still - the bright semi-circular plate and a square plate. They are right next to each other, upper-right of the bottom layer. The blue colour varied quite a bit.

The instruction book contained a page with a selection of models from the previous pages, modified to be powered with the little clockwork motor. Now with a matching blue Magic Motor in the set, some of the little colourful models will be set in motion too.  Fun little puzzles to make!

D&P Kubus Rechenstab

A while back, I managed to snag the little instruction booklet that goes with an erly 20th century Dennert & Pape sliderule. In addition to the explanations on the use of the 'Normal' sliderule, it also contained a chapter on the 'Kubus' sliderule.

Guess what turned up.

Somewhat worn and damaged, this sliderule came in a small lot. It has a replacement cursor or runner, but otherwise it is period. The original would have had a narrower aluminium framed single-line cursor. This three-line cursor looks like a late thirties to early forties item, but of course fits this rule fine.

The early Dennert & Pape sliderules have a year code in the well; this specimen was manufactured in 1920.

Very plain, simple sliderule with only added the E and F scales (according to the invention of Max Rietz). The well is plain with only the German patent number for the metal tensioning plate design.

The metal tensioning plate was rather rusty, now cleaned up. The label with conversion tables is quite unreadable. From what remains, it contains the conversion factors for many measurement units that are long obsolete - such as the Prussian 'Ruthe'.

The scales were cleaned up first with a rubber eraser and then a light steel-wool polishing. The three tensioning screws all needed loosening, as the rule was keeping the tongue in a very tight grip (not letting go!). A small snippet of lacquered cream-coloured paper fills in a missing corner of the right-end of the D scale - still visible as off-colour, but less jarring than dark wood.

Now with an actual 'Kubus Rechenstab', I can continue with section II of the little manual! :-)

Wrong period

Spotted today - a typewriter for the right price, but of the wrong period for my collection. (And am out of storage space in any case :-)

For a very reasonable 10 euro, a quite modern looking Olivetti Lettera DL. Even though it is a late 1960ies design that was made into the seventies, to me the styling looks ahead of its time. Would not look out of place in an eighties' setting. (The design was commented on some years ago on The Filthy platen. Having seen it, it really is a striking design.)

 

As is often the case, the machine seems to work just fine with a remarkably friction-free touch. Not so sure about that plastic ribbon, but that's about all.

It'll have to go, the thrift shop is closing down. Somebody will for sure get this, and then be getting a fine writing machine :)

A beautiful database

One of those things that were once common and have quietly disappeared - the card index to the library.

Not only does this index survive, it really is the most beautiful database I've seen. For data protection not a firewall or virus-scanner - but a fire-extinguisher and climate control.

(It's the index of the Carnegie library in Reims, finished in '27.)

Accessorising the typewriter (Leitz Nr 8)

Typewriter hiccup (1928)

With old typewriters, the escapement may sometimes skip a space - the age of the mechanism I've always thought. Hence with some surprise I noticed what I think is a machine 'skip', in a proper document too. (Top line.)

This would surely have been typed out by the secretarial staff of the mayor's office, in any case by a professional typist. It may not have been noticed at the time, or too minor/late to justify a re-type. It is in the first line, so maybe the typist was still getting into the 'rhythm' of the machine - or it was an old machine. There are no obvious typo's in the actual text, but the year '1917' is remarkable for using the capital 'I' instead of the lower case 'l'.

This page was typed in 1928. The document from city archives is the transcript of the speech of the deputy mayor at the dinner held for the festive opening of the rebuilt town hall of Reims.

Seeing evidence of contemporary typewriter 'hiccups' makes it a bit more 'normal' when an 80 year old machine will occasionally skip a space today - it's just part of how the machine works :-)

Low end (Continental) safari

Having just read of the rich seam of typewriters that may be spotted on a San Fransisco area safari, I'm prompted to share at least one machine that I keep encountering in my occasional visits to the local thrifts.

This machine is priced at a very reasonable EUR 7.50 and has been for months.

It's been sitting on this shelf, next to a fifties' Remington standard with damaged paintwork. The typewriter does still function, carriage moves and it seems to type fine. The ribbon looks a very recent replacement. The case looks worn and is probably moldy. There is absolutely no visible marking or decals on the machine - the paper table is the one part that is missing from the typewriter.

So a puzzle.

It took a little bit of digging around the internet and especially looking at images in The Database to identify this as almost certainly a Continental 'Klein-Conti' or Wanderer 340. This is a fairly common machine here and is even more common in Germany. The color of the paintjob is unusual, to me suggestive of it being a post-war specimen. (Did not find the serial number.)

Even though the price could be fine merely for a new ribbon, did not get the machine. Apart from it being incomplete and 'too modern' for my liking, there is a fairly strict stop here on new typewriters. So no new project typewriters. :-)