Montag, 3. Dezember 2012

V. Zurich Typehunt: The "Helvetia".

Zürich, 30. November 2012: V. Zürcher Typehunt.

Bertastrasse - the leaves are gone. No typewriters in the thrift store either.

The Hermes Standard: Probably found a buyer. Only the Royal is left at this shop at Citroën-Garage.

And this is - the ominous Helvetia. I somehow had already assumed that the Helvetia would in fact be a PATRIA.

It was a bit dusty, but one thing I noticed were the glass keys: On my PATRIA (which has a broken mainspring), there is only a metal frame, but a plastic keytop. This one has a paper keytop with glass cover. Also, I think that the embossed brand name is not present on mine either.

Tragic flaw: The carriage return lever must have broken off at some point. Otherwise, it typed well, pretty snappy. But without return lever nor case, I didn't really consider getting it. S/N: 22119 - rather low.

The M44: Still there. The price is clearly too high.

At Salvation Army: No changes either. Both the electric brother and the electric Olivetti Lettera 38C are still there.
*Plus the usual Horde of 6 at Citroën-Garage - I didn't take a photo of them this time.
This awesome post was brought to you by the mighty Typosphere

6 Kommentare:

Bill M hat gesagt…

So you did not get the Helvetia and make one working one out of the one you have and the one in the store?

Richard P hat gesagt…

Ach! I was hoping the Helvetia would be something special. So Antonio just forgot the name?

Of course, here in the US a Patria or an Olivetti M44 would be exotic finds.

Miguel Chávez hat gesagt…

What a pity, for a moment I thought you had found something really unusual. Oh well, guess it's part of the hunt. Sometimes you bag a prize, sometimes you don't.

shordzi hat gesagt…

Patrias in freier Wildbahn finde ich immer einen guten Fund. Kannst Du dich erinnern, ob die S/N: 22119 auf der Querstrebe unter der Tastatur links eingraviert ist?
Ich habe sowohl ein Exemplar wo der Schriftzug eingeprägt ist, als auch eine wo er nur aufgedruckt ist.

notagain hat gesagt…

That's pretty nice, even with flaws. I bet you could rig up a return lever. Good job getting the S/N

maschinengeschrieben hat gesagt…

Thanks for your comments!
I, too, had hoped for a unusual find when Antonio mentioned his Helvetia first, but I didn't get too high hopes - I always expected the possibility of it being a Patria. I probably would be possible to merge the two Patrias into one - but after all, I already have a couple of machines I should take a look at...

And as Miguel correctly suggested, there's days where you find something awesome, and there's days where you don't get anything. And for myself, I can say that I got something more unusual for swiss conditions this weekend.

Georg, der Schriftzug ist auf der Querstrebe eingestanzt.

Kommentar veröffentlichen

Danke für Ihren Kommentar! Haben Sie Lust, mehr zu schreiben als einen Kommentar? Share fascination.
Thanks for your comment! Would you like to write more than a comment? Share fascination.
Es kann bis zu 24 Stunden dauern, bis ein Kommentar moderiert ist und erscheint.
It may take up to 24 hours until a comment is moderated and published.