1932 Urania Piccola #111111
Status: Sightings
Hunter: Paolo Dal Chiele (pdcox)
Created: 02-08-2025 at 06:32AM
Last Edit: 02-08-2025 at 06:51AM
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Description:
The typewriter I present in this gallery is not mine but that of my dear friend Ovidiu who sent it to me to repair a problem with the carriage release mechanism.
It's not a joke, it really is really the Urania Piccola Model R Mk.1 number 111111, which meant it had to be treated with the attention and detail a special machine deserves!
In the gallery I dedicated to the Urania Klein I expressed my perplexity regarding the inconsistency of its mechanics. Ovidiu's Piccola allows me to be more specific.
The Piccola was designed in the first half of the 1920s and launched in 1925, and was therefore one of the very first portable typewriters with four rows of keys with the ambition of reducing the difference with standard machines both in terms of functions and typing experience at a time when portable typewriters were dominated by folding models and mechanical ones equipped with specific kinematic mechanisms.
The designers of the Piccola achieved this result thanks to a kinematic chain that guarantees a fluid and consistent typing action (typebars at 90 degrees to the segment, typebars levers hinged in the rear part of the frame), a full keyboard with long stroke keys (14 mm), a full range of main functions (colour selector, automatic ribbon direction change, etc.) and a solid construction that guarantees the machine's great stability.
This result was achieved without having other products as a reference and without compromise: the result was a machine with extremely refined mechanics but with a high level of complexity, which translated into high production costs and makes maintenance operations laborious and complex.
At the time of launch this wasn't a problem. The problem arose fairly quickly, however, when other typewriters appeared in the same market niche, such as the Stoewer Klein (1926), Underwood Portable 4 banks (1926), Erika Model 5 (1928), Triumph Klein (1929), Adler Mod. 31/32 (1931) and Olympia Progress (1931).
In an attempt to maintain and challenge the competition, Urania introduced the Simplex model of the Piccola without colour selector and without automatic change of the ribbon direction. Judging by the fact that I have never seen one and that even in the advertising of the time this model had very little space, sales of the Simplex must have been really modest.
According to Martin, in addition to the R model and the Simplex, there was also the T Model with tabulator. As with the Simplex, I have never seen a surviving example of this and I can't even begin to imagine how it could have contained all the related mechanisms in the available space!
To keep costs down and reduce maintenance problems, the ‘Piccola’ underwent a number of modifications during its production period, the main one being the modification of the ribbon colour selection mechanism, with the replacement in 1933 of the lever selector with the wheel selector that would also be adopted in the Klein.
However, during this period the Urania design team was already working on a radical simplification of the Piccola that would result in the launch of the Klein in 1935. The most important modification was certainly that of the lever mechanism of the type, with a drastic reduction in the length of the key levers, allowing direct access to the carriage and escapement mechanisms and a substantial reduction in the number and type of components (a total of 4 with two levers and two links instead of 5 with four levers and a single link), with the replacement of individually removable typebars with fulcrum wire hinged typebars.
When asked which of the two machines is better, the answer is certainly the Klein, which obviously has a lighter type, is lighter and is much easier to maintain and repair.
When asked which of the two machines is more interesting, the answer is certainly the Piccola, an extremely refined machine designed without compromise.
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Hunter: Paolo Dal Chiele (pdcox)
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RESEARCH NOTE: When researching the Urania Piccola on a computer with lots of screen real estate, you may find that launching the Urania Serial Number page and the Urania Piccola By Model/Year/Serial page in new browser windows can give you interesting perspectives on changes throughout the model series.
