1907 Fox 24 #20174
Status: My Collection
Hunter: Brian Decker (bkdecker66)
Created: 12-30-2025 at 11:59AM
Last Edit: 12-30-2025 at 01:23PM
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Description:
This is the third of the three Fox Visible Model 24 typewriters that I acquired, and the earliest of the three. It seems to be the earliest Fox 24 with a gallery in TWDB as of this writing (12/30/2025). Like my other two Fox 24 machines, I won this one in an eBay auction. My electronic records are lost on a crashed hard drive, but I have written notes indicating that I acquired this before 9/4/2001, and most likely in July or August of 2001. From memory, my cost was between that of my 1915 Fox 24 (S/N 75096) and my 1917 Fox 24 (S/N 107271), somewhere in the range of $125 +/- $20.
This day of gallery creation (12/30/25) is the very first day I have typed anything on this machine. I spent the past 2-3 days fixing multiple issues. I had already used JB Weld to repair the dog rocker arm and one of the basket shift arms. When putting the dog assembly back together, I noticed that the rocker stop nut was bent. It broke under very little pressure, so I had to JB Weld that as well. I found that the "S" key linkage and the "X" key linkage had both shifted to the other side of their respective guide pins, so I had to remove the clevis joints and coax them back into place with needle-nose pliers. Then I had to clean the type thoroughly, as it was very gunky and perhaps had not been used in a century. The carriage draw-band was broken, but fortunately my absolute wreck of an Underwood Universal portable parts machine (S/N F61932) had a perfectly good one, and I installed it in the Fox. Finally, I had to rig up some typebar rests with some thick rope and strips of leather and cardboard.
Although this machine superficially looks like most Fox 24's, on closer inspection, there are very many subtle differences indicating this is a very early machine in the series. One very visible example is that the margin release lever passes through a cut-out hole in the back panel. Many parts on the back are made of brittle cast iron tubes (including the dog rocker). Many parts are nickeled that they didn't bother with later in the series, probably to save cost.
There are some alignment issues, and red/black bleed-through, but the machine basically types okay now. It has a Pica typeface. It brings a sense of accomplishment to have brought it back to life even this much!
Typeface Specimen:
Links:
Photos:
Hunter: Brian Decker (bkdecker66)
Brian Decker's Typewriter Galleries [ My Collection ] [ My Sightings ]
Status: Typewriter Hunter
Points: 920
My interest in typewriters started in 1997, when I was in graduate school at the University of Georgia. I purchased and read Darryl Rehr's book, joined ETC, and started reaching out to known collectors. I had several email interchanges with Richard Polt dating from that period. I also bought some of my first machines from Bob Aubert, and visited him at his home twice. After marriage and relocation to New England, I continued visiting antique shops and eBay, until other priorities put my typewriter hobby on hiatus around 2008. I still have my collection of around 57 machines, and now I have a renewed interest in getting some of them in good working and cosmetic order.
RESEARCH NOTE: When researching the Fox 24 on a computer with lots of screen real estate, you may find that launching the Fox Serial Number page and the Fox 24 By Model/Year/Serial page in new browser windows can give you interesting perspectives on changes throughout the model series.
