1944 Triumph Norm 6 #436924
Status: My Collection
Hunter: Anthony Mindling (tmindling)
Created: 05-21-2013 at 07:28PM
Last Edit: 05-21-2013 at 07:45PM
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Description:
THE ABWEHR MACHINE
This burgundy beauty was made in Germany in 1944 - with an English keyboard! Not only is this a lovely machine in lovely condition, but there is a mystery here. How is it that in 1944 the Triumph Werke in Germany manufactured a typewriter presumably for export, when all manufacturing resources were directed toward the war effort?
My solution, and I'm sticking to it until someone can explain otherwise, is that it is a "one-off", made for the use of a double agent in the Abwehr - German military intelligence - to produce documents supposedly providing information on troop movements, etc., but including misleading information.
An interesting feature in support of the idea of manufacture off of the assembly line are the many rotated characters in the keys; as if they were replaced without the usual secure fastening.
The other solution, of course, but much less interesting, is that the typewriter was brought to the States after the war and converted to English here. I know there was a typewriter repairman working in New York City in that era whose services included language conversions.
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/97nov/type.htm
Typeface Specimen:
Photos:
Hunter: Anthony Mindling (tmindling)
Anthony Mindling's Typewriter Galleries [ My Collection ] [ My Sightings ]
Status: Typewriter Hunter
Points: 615
Almost at the same instant that the idea occurred to me of how much fun it might be for my children (7) and grandchildren (13) to get letters - real letters in the mail - i went digging through the dusty nether regions of our storage area to pull out my beloved 1957 Olympia SM3 Portable and the old Royal 10 I'd rescued from a neighbor's garbage can in the 1960's. Refurbishing them triggered a typewriter obsession. Don't tell my wife, but i believe there are now about 20 of them.
I love their looks, their intricate and precise mechanisms, and dinking around in the workshop tuning them up and bringing them back to life. i also, unfortunately, love the thrill of the hunt on eBay. But all of them are put to use for correspondence and my new hobby of decorated art letters. And sometimes they even inspire a bit of poetry.
RESEARCH NOTE: When researching the Triumph Norm 6 on a computer with lots of screen real estate, you may find that launching the Triumph Serial Number page and the Triumph Norm 6 By Model/Year/Serial page in new browser windows can give you interesting perspectives on changes throughout the model series.
