| Underwood Portable Typewriter Gallery 1920-1963 |
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| Underwood Portable -- 3-bank keyboard. Produced from 1920 through 1929, with early machines having only one set of shift keys on the left side. Later machines have a "CAP" shift key added on the right side. The two variants can be seen here. |
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| by Will Davis |
| Two photos from the Tilman Elster collection. On the left, the older machine, serial number 14865, produced in 1920. On the right, later machine with double "CAP" keys, serial 178245, built in the late 1920's. Note that the type-bar segment is different on 14865; this is limited to very early machines. |
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| Underwood Portable -- 4-bank keyboard, early. Produced beginning in 1926, and for the purpose of our discussion which centers mainly around visual identification, this can be considered as the pre-war four-bank machine. There are some variations, as we will see. |
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| Hold your cursor over each photo for information. All machines below courtesy TILMAN ELSTER collection. |
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| Underwood Portables, pre-war through 1950. These are characterized by a more contained shape, with solid top cover, but are not yet radically altered -- although the application of crinkle paint and offsetting flat enamel and chrome elements leads one to think they are. One major difference was that the machines' ribbon spools did not move with the carriage when shifted, as they did on most pre-war models. These appear to have ben introduced in late 1939, and reappeared after the war. |
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| All three photos from Tilman Elster collection. Top left, Underwood Leader, a very simple model with no tabs, no ribbon selector and no touch control. Underwood Universal, above, adds touch control and ribbon selector. Underwood Champion, left, has tabulator, touch control and ribbon selector. There are other variations between these machines, and some other names were used, but these are the three basic variants from the beginning of post-war production until the new machines appeared for the 1950's. |
| Underwood Portables: 1950's and on. Characterized not only by modern new shapes and colors, but by basket (or segment) shift as well. Many various model names applied to a range of fairly similar machines, differing in options and body styling. Text provides some details; hold your cursor over the picture to obtain more. The machines are shown in order of increasing serial number. |
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| Underwood Finger-Flite Champion (J2113214) Tilman Elster collection This machine displays the harder-to-find "round" version of the 1950's body. Note the rounded shoulders on the sides of the machine. This variant has tabulator (key-set with the tiny keys outboard the top row) and margin set placement visible through the paper table via slots. Centered, inserted emblem on front. |
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| At right is an illustration from an Underwood manual dated 1955. It shows the Underwood De Luxe, which is sub-labeled as "Quiet Tab" in the paper table emblem. This machine also has flip-up paper supports. |
| Underwood Star (D2514900) Tilman Elster collection Our next example is seen in the "square" body, whose differences are immediately obvious. This Star model also happens to be a stripped version with no tabs, no see-through paper table (for margin set position,) no paper arms, and no paper bail. Note the offset, inserted stamped or "embossed" emblem on the top cover. |
| Underwood Leader (U2396153) Tilman Elster collection This Leader is essentially the same machine as that seen above, but brings up a feature of many of these 1950's Underwood portables. It can be seen that this is actually a two-tone paint job, with the body being slightly darker than the top cover and paper table. The degree of color offset is small, but is actually present. A number of color schemes like this can be found on Underwood portables of this decade, with barely different shades. |
| Underwood Jewell (2532902) Tilman Elster collection This model, as compared to the two seen just above, adds ribbon selector switch (3-position, lever type, on the right of the keyboard) and a paper bail. Note that the emblem on the paper table is not as simple as that on the other two, but not as elaborate as on higher priced models. Yet another two-tone paint scheme as well. Note the briefly-employed Underwood emblem on the front. |
| Underwood Ace (Z2594378) Will Davis collection The Ace is a nearly top-of-the-line model, with ribbon selector, paper bail, key-set tabulator, margin sets visible through paper table. The manual that came with this machine was dated 1955, and provided all of the "1950's" illustrations in this section. Note the chrome, semi-script Underwood logo on the front. |
| The illustration at left shows a machine labeled as the Underwood Universal Quiet Tab, and it appears to be exactly the same as the Underwood Ace. |
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| Underwood Leader (CA2720996) Will Davis collection Yet another Leader, and it should be apparent by now that application of the "Leader" name to an Underwood portable indicates a very basic machine. This example is optioned identically to the Leader and Star above; we show it in the progression to help track emblem style with serial number. |
| Underwood Hideaway (HA2906031) Tilman Elster collection It is obvious that between the last machine we've seen, with serial number 2,720,996, and this Hideaway model, whose serial number is 2,906,031, that some alterations in decor have been made, even if the machine is little different. (This machine correlates in features to the Jewell seen above.) The paint is smooth instead of crinkle, the front emblem is completely different, and the machine is all one color. The orange portion of the front label actually says "Golden Touch" in tiny black print. |
| Underwood Leader (CC2910744) Tilman Elster collection Aside from yet another emblem change, this Leader displays a new shape. You might note that the Hideaway still retained the old body styling from the "square" 1950's machines. This Leader is in a new body with no side shoulders and a more modern (for the time) top cover. (Actually, the top cover is just wider, but for quick reference you can just note that there are, visually, no side shoulders on this machine.) The front label with the large "U" says, under the U, "Underwood" in small print, and above the U in very tiny print, says "Golden Touch." |
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| Other Underwood portables. |
| Underwood Noiseless Portable Tilman Elster collection Underwood manufactured a variety of Noiseless portables, although not nearly as wide as that built by Remington-Rand. This example dates to 1936. |
| Underwood-Olivetti Lettera 22 Will Davis collection As mentioned on our page on Underwood Standards, the Olivetti buyout really began in 1959 with Olivetti's purchase of Underwood stock. During the next few years, a number Olivetti portables appeared for sale in the US, sold through Underwood channels, and which carried the "Underwood-Olivetti" name. Following complete merger of Underwood into a new Olivetti-Underwood Corporation in October 1963, the brand name on the Olivetti-pattern machines switched around to "Olivetti-Underwood." We see here a machine from the 1959-1963 period. |