This typewriter belongs to a customer of Urban Legend Typewriters.
#N1118385 was made in August, 1940.
The backspace and margin release are up above the rest of the keyboard,
allowing for two more keys (four more characters) on the keyboard ...
... but that’s not really unusual.
It’s a common arrangement on European versions of the noiseless portables.
“Look closely at that keyboard” ...
Here’s the answer:
As a matter of fact, I have
never seen curly quotes on any typebar typewriter, even sophisticated electric machines with proportional typefaces such as the IBM Executive. The even more sophisticated
Varityper DSJ offered curly quotes on some of its type shuttles. Nearly all typewriters, of course, use "straight quotes" rather than “curly ones.” Even your word processor uses straight quotes! The application changes them to curly depending on the context. (At least in Microsoft Word, after you type a quotation mark and the application “curls” it, the Undo command will straighten it out again.)
Once you get used to it, this system is easier than the traditional typewriter keyboard, where you have to shift to get straight quotes or an apostrophe. On this machine, you shift only to get the opening curly quotes “ and single quotes ‘ . When you close a quote ” or insert an apostrophe ’ no shifting is required.
The accents are also interesting. These are “dead keys,” which don’t advance the carriage.
You can see the difference between the three typebars on the right end of the typebasket and the other typebars: the dead typebars are cut short so they don't push down the universal bar when you type.
On most typewriters, you type the accent first and then the letter it modifies. Pre-war Remingtons do it more like handwriting: first you type a, for instance, and then ` on top of it.
How do they manage this? With weird type slugs that reach over to the left.
I’m very charmed by this machine, and frankly, I wish I could keep it.
I won’t be surprised if I never find another one like it.
