Reiseschreibmaschinen3

Reiseschreibmaschinen / Travelling Typewriters 3

On this page, we'll cover some of the introductions through the era of the 50's, and very early 60's.

In 1948, Keller & Knappich of Augsburg, W. Germany introduced the Princess. This company only ever made portable typewriters, although, like others, it had been in business before this manufacturing other kinds of small machines. Most were of the small and flat size envelope displayed by this Princess 300, the top-line machine in the flat range. Eventually, the company did develop a Princess 500, which was the same machine inside a larger body. This line is covered in my Germany pages, and also on the pages concerning the Bulgarian-made Maritsa.

Two machines first introduced 1954/1955. On the left, an Antares machine (the Parva model,) made by Antares SpA in Milan. This firm was first named Pozzi, but changed its name to match the brand of machine. This line was the first ever to use dowel plate type mounting of the type bars. (See my Portable Typewriter Teardown page for more details on this design aspect.) Like many other makers of the time, this firm never made standard typewriters -- and also never made anything but flat, travelling typewriters.

On the right, the familiar Cole-Steel, made by Koch's Eagle Sewing Machine Works (Adlernahmaschinenwerke) in Bielefeld, West Germany, beginning in 1955. These were referred to as the ABC in original branding. Again, this size and shape was the only variety produced by this maker, until tooling was sent to Portugal, where Messa-made variants eventually became larger, with new type-bar mechanism, and began to reach out of the travelling size category as first defined in the early era of modern travelling typewriters. Both Antares machines and ABC / Cole-Steel machines can be seen in further detail elsewhere on my site.

Up until now, Olivetti machines have not received very much "press" on my sites, as they're so very common. However, it is important not to overlook the millions and millions of manual portables this company manufactured. In 1954, Olivetti developed the first travelling typewriter with basket shift, the Lettera 22. A slightly later Underwood-Olivetti Lettera 22 is seen here. These machines quickly set a new precedent in travelling typewriters for two reasons. First, the incorporation of basket shift in a very small and compact machine, and second, a degree of reliability and ruggedness right up with the best of the older travelling typewriters. These were the first common machines which had a solid back plate behind the carriage, allowing the machine to rest on its back with no damage to the carriage. (The small Nippo and Royal machines, introduced about the same time, also had this feature.)

The 1954-55 time frame was fruitful for travelling typewriters. As seen on my page concerning the search for the elusive Halberg, the small Nippo and Royal machines were introduced at this time, based upon the older, unsuccessful Halberg. While the Nippo turned out to be a non-entity in the field, the Royal line became a huge seller in the field, in several different model (and body) configurations. (See Halberg, Nippo and Royal pages for more information.)

It may seem, at this point, as if I'm simply showing a string of machines already shown elsewhere on my site. However, it is important to tie them all together; perhaps it may not have occurred to readers just when each machine was introduced compared to its competitors. As we can now see, there was a virtual flood of travelling typewriters in the middle 1950's, following the success post-war of the Hermes (and Empire and Montana clone variants,) Smith-Corona, and Gossen Tippa machines. It is true that it took a short while for the Tippa to really take off, but its design spurred competition. It is difficult to say just how much competition reaction was due to another machine in this category, namely the Rooy, but the overall sense was that this sub-market of portable typewriters in general was potentially huge, and many makers rushed to either develop their own machines at this time, or else buy into those already being made.

Around 1954, Remington introduced a new Travel-Riter to its lineup. Not in the flat category, but very much smaller and lighter than the older design. The Travel-Riter was made in Holland, and was a different machine, not just a miniaturized Quiet-Riter. This was as small as the 1950's Remington machines got; later machines from Holland, built through the 60's and into the 70's are smaller yet.

According to Beeching's book "Century of the Typewriter," Brother Industries of Japan made studies into the production of portable typewriters in this same time period. However, the company did not immediately enter the market, but rather decided to slowly and patiently develop a product which would be reliable and superior to other machines in the market. This it finally did in 1961. This somewhat worn Signature 100, which was sold by Montgomery Ward department stores, is representative of the earliest style of Brother portable. It seems that a deal with this store allowed Brother to get a foothold in the US market, as very many Ward's machines can be found which were made by Brother. The huge success of this company's efforts is now well-known, and more units of this kind can be seen on my Japan pages.

Prior to the Second World War, Olympia had produced its' tiny Olympia Plana, an odd little machine with a type bar segment manufactured from hard plastic. Postwar, and after the split of the firm into Olympia of West Germany and Optima of the GDR, Optima briefly relaunched the Plana in a slightly different version which was not, apparently, successful. A few years later, in 1956, Olympia began production of the little, flat SF series (seen here,) which quickly took off in sales and set a new benchmark for quality in small, flat typewriters which some (including this author) think to be unmatched before or after.

Eventually, Olympia redesigned the body of the machine, making it larger and giving it distinctive styling. This was the SKF, often seen as the Olympia Traveller de Luxe. Production was licensed to UNIS, of Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, who added into, and later took over, production of the design. Some were sold with no Olympia mark at all; at left, my UNIS TBM DE LUXE with Cyrillic keyboard.

In 1959, the Czechoslovakian firm by the name of Zbrojovka Brno, with offices and plant in Prague, began production of a small machine known initially as the Model 31; later numerous variants followed. This machine and its successors were indeed sold at times all over the world, but not nearly in such large numbers as any of the competitive machines.

In 1965, the flood gate was kicked wide open when Silver-Seiko (left) and Nakajima (right) of Japan began production of manual portables essentially to customer specification. The truly modern portable era had arrived .. with travelling typewriters!

Although they are a bit large for our discussion here, in fact, the members of the Euro-Portable family, manufactured in large numbers beginning after the Second World War in Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, West Germany, France and England were sometimes advertised as travelling typewriters and so should be considered. Lower pricing helped offset the larger size, making these machines actually competitive in the field we're now discussing.

Oliver Courier, a member of what I refer to as the Euro-Portable family.

There are other machines in this general size range which we have not shown, but the majority of the machines have been, and (I think) all of the major ones. As you can see, this field was extremely saturated post-war but never did quit. Indeed, all of the machines manufactured right now are in this smaller, flatter size bracket. I hope you've enjoyed this retrospective, and that you find additional material on each of the brands and makes on my other website pages of further interest.