1927 Underwood Portable 4 Bank #4B86580

Status: My Collection
Hunter: James Grooms (jgrooms)
Created: 04-21-2025 at 05:35PM
Last Edit: 01-27-2026 at 08:37AM

Description Hunter 25 Photos 0 Likes  Find on Ebay #AD  Find on Etsy #AD

Description:

Portable 4 Bank.

When was the four bank introduced? See the main page where Ted breaks it down. There are no 1925 Portable Four Banks. The first mention, in a trade journal, is a demo testing in July 1926. Were they available for sale? The newspaper ads support Sept 1926 where the dealers run ads for an item they have in stock.

The Underwood strat is to lean on the main feature upgrade. So this makes ad search fairly straight forward, as there are no "four" or "4" bank ads before late 1926.

Why does it matter? The gallery gets populated with this incorrect info without reading the clear main page info, and the next thing you know, we have "rare 1924 Four banks" in the wild.

For what it is worth, Beeching has it as 1926.

If you have some primary source data for 1925, let's see it. Mine is posted here.

Typeface Specimen:

Links:

• one Gallery
• Manual

Photos:

Office Appliance trade journal "new" portable demo from 7/1926.

First TT mention found for 1927. "New."

Sept 1926 first dealer ad.

Oct 1926 and the new machines have arrived in the UK.

Nov 1925 and dealers still running three bank ads. If they had the four bank, they'd run ads for it.

Hunter: James Grooms (jgrooms)

James Grooms's Typewriter Galleries [ My Collection ] [ My Sightings ]

Status: Typewriter Hunter
Points: 19885

Typewriters are the perfect blend of using one's technical skills, history and functional purpose. My goal is type tested machines. My interests are not isolated to anyone area. For example, I am a big fan of Smith Corona electrics, mid century electrics and all things Royal.