1969 Penncrest (SCM) Caravelle 12 #P6L-109533

Status: My Collection
Hunter: Christopher Bailey (cbaile19)
Created: 07-25-2023 at 08:06PM
Last Edit: 09-01-2023 at 07:49AM

Description Hunter 14 Photos 0 Likes  Find on Ebay #AD  Find on Etsy #AD

Description:

Found in a thrift store in good mechanical and cosmetic shape. The ribbon was upside-down; I turned it over and found it still inky.

Addendum: After I had used the machine for a few days, I noticed one part missing: the erasure table. I would not have noticed it if I hadn’t been looking in the manual for this model, because I’m not used to erasure tables. I never erase, and older machines don’t have them. But it does explain what that little post sticking out at the right end of the carriage was supposed to be holding.

Another addendum: I mention below that the Auto-Space wasn‘t working, but after several pages of writing I find that the problem has corrected itself, and the Auto-Space now works reliably. I made no attempt to fiddle with that mechanism, but something was probably gummed up and vibrated itself loose.

Typeface Specimen:

Photos:

The alignment is very respectable.

The bottom of the machine has tidy little holes to guide you to the adjustments.

Under the hood.

The instructions for changing Add-a-Type type slugs are on a sticker under the ribbon cover.

Rear label.

The serial number is in one of those holes on the bottom.

The case.

It’s frustrating that no picture can convey the distinctive dark teal color: it comes out dark blue no matter how I try to adjust the color balance. You have to take my word for it that it’s very sixties and much more interesting than mere dark blue. The mat under the machine is half of a dollar-store shelf liner, which makes an excellent typing mat.

The previous owner took this warning seriously and preserved this piece of foam packing for fifty-five years. I’ve blacked out the owner’s signature.

Hunter: Christopher Bailey (cbaile19)

Christopher Bailey's Typewriter Galleries [ My Collection ] [ My Sightings ]

Status: Typewriter Hunter
Points: 844

I’m a writer who often writes with a typewriter to get away from the computer for a while. I think I became a typewriter collector when I bought my typewriters some industrial-grade wheeled steel shelving from a restaurant supply house. Before that I was just an accumulator, but now I’ve spent more on shelves than on all the typewriters put together. (They were all cheap.)

I have steel pens, too, which I also write with regularly. Both collections started at the same moment in 1990, at the liquidation of the head offices of the old G. C. Murphy five-and-dime chain, where I bought a Woodstock typewriter, two gross of Esterbrook Jackson Stub pens, and three bottles of Carter’s green ink.