Dactyle Typewriter Serial Numbers

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Also known as Brand: Blickensderfer • Blick-Bar • Dactyle • Harry A. Smith (Blick-Bar) • Moyer • Weltblick • World-Blick

Serial Number Table Last Edited: 12/11/24 04:16
NOTE: dates shown are JAN 1 unless noted, so the serial number shown is the *first* serial number produced the given year. Exceptions are serial numbers preceded by "up to"(where you can assume that the numbers reported in that subsection are DECEMBER 31, END OF YEAR NUMBERS) or rows where a month is given in the month column. If the serial number is shown as a range (xxxx-xxxx) it indicates that we know the entire range of serial numbers for the given year.

Models and s/n	Y	M	D	Remarks	Ref.
Platen Diameter				No Info	24
				Blickensderfer Mfg. Co., Stamford, Conn., U.S.A. (1892) Blickensderfer Mfg. Co., 385 Broadway, New York, U.S.A.
Manual Portables				NOTE: Serial numbers listed here are for END OF YEAR, and are the *last* serial number made for that year.
	1892	DEC	31	Blickensderfer #1, #3 and #5 reviewed in "Frank Harrison's Shorthand Monthly" December 1892.	32,138
No. 1	1893			Blickensderfer No. 1 reviewed in publication, but no examples known to survive. $100 machine with features: Writing in plain sight at all times; automatic word spacer; automatic line spacer; automatic tabulating attachement; automatically-returning carriage; rapid ruling and underlining attachment in colors (black and red); graduated line spacer; interchangeable rollers for any width of paper; new cam-lever movement which gives a delicate, elastic and easy action.	138
No. 3	1893			Blickensderfer No. 3 reviewed in publication, but no examples known to survive. Weighs eight pounds and sells for $65. No auto carriage return or ruling device.	78,138
500	1893	DEC	31	Blickensderfer exhibits at World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 1893.	32,138
5300	1894	DEC	31		32
No. 5	1894			Blick #5 production for market began early 1894, according to Bert Kerschbaumer's early Blick letterhead [published in ETC 95]. This and other ephemera suggest that Robert Blickesderfer's numbers used here may not be accurate until about the middle of 1897. [Peter Weil,2014] Sold as "Dactyle" No. 2 in France
9600	1895	DEC	31		32
	1896	NOV	19	Blickensderfer #5 serial 10194	40
10500	1896	DEC	31		32
	1897	JAN	09	Blickensderfer #5 serial 11250	137
	1897	FEB	04	Blickensderfer #5 serial 14053	40,137
16000(?)	1897	DEC	31		32
No. 7	1897			Blick Model #7 Started 1897, fixed base, upper scale was printed on celluloid, optional tabulator, shiny nickel plated space bar. Early models have special button to see where the last letter was printed, and offered "automatic spacing" as a feature unless the customer did not want it. On these, if the typist came to the end of a word and then pushed both the first letter and the space bar at the same time, the carriage moved to print that first letter directly. This required an extra pawl on the escapement. Also sold as "Dactyle" No. 3 in France	4,13,24, 78,137
	1898	DEC	05	Blickensderfer #5 serial 14659	40,137
	1898	DEC	01	Blickensderfer #5 serial 35069-1327	40
	1898	NOV	22	Blickensderfer #5 serial 35221	40
36500	1898	DEC	31		32
	1899	MAR	13	An order for a No. 7 serial 22500-98 is "approved" on March 13, 1899 but the order slip is also stamped "received" on Feb 8, 1898.	137
45000	1899	DEC	31		32
	1899-1900			No. 7 update first with larger return lever and later, a larger space bar covered in black celluloid, upper scale engraved on a nickel-plated rule.	137
	1900	NOV	11	Blickensderfer #7 serial 23818	40
54000	1900	DEC	31		32
	1901	SEP	30	Blickensderfer #7 serial 61350	40
63800	1901	DEC	31		32
	1902	MAR	03	Blickensderfer #7 serial 66259 (9661/66259)	40
	1902	DEC	19	Blickensderfer #7 serial 70930	40
73700	1902	DEC	31		32
84500	1903	DEC	31		32
94500	1904	DEC	31		32
	1905			Improved model (paper feeding etc.)
104400	1905	DEC	31		32
114000	1906	DEC	31		32
No. 8	1907			Started 1907, with tabulator and backspace key, stronger frame. "Orient" Model, with Hebrew and Hebrew-Latin typewheel, carriage movement from left to right and optional left-right and right-left (for Hebrew-Latin)	4
123500	1907	DEC	31		32
132500	1908	DEC	31		32
No. 5 Aluminium	1909			Model No. 5 Aluminium introduced in 1909. Very few were made, and frame is usually not painted, but painted examples are known. This model lacked the improvements of the No. 6 and No. 7 such as the carriage riding on roller bearings, and sport a normal No. 5 nameplate.	137
141400	1909	DEC	31		32
No. 6 Aluminium & Featherweight	1910			Introduced 1910 in the UK as the "Blick # 6 Featherweight." Then in the UK, they dropped the "No. 6" Then, soon after the last version came out around 1911 or so, at about serial number 175000 ca. 1913-14, the inker arm was changed (became a folding inker arm) and the name "Blick Featherweight" was used on both the U.S. and UK versions. In essence, "No. 6" was eliminated as a model name. Moreover, at about serial number 160000, when "Featherwight" was only on the UK version, only on the UK Featherweights, a back spacer was added. Later, After all typewriters of that form were Featherweights, with back spacer. Production of No. 6 ended in 1916 after around 2500 units (peaking in 1911). Production of the "Featherweight" peaked in 1914.	137
150000	1910	DEC	31		32
158000	1911	DEC	31		32
165600	1912	DEC	31		32
	1913	MAR	15	Blickensderfer #7 serial 166023	40
172800	1913	DEC	31		32
No. 9	1914				24
	1914	OCT	31	Blickensderfer #7 serial 177486	40
179400	1914	DEC	31		32
185000	1915	DEC	31		32
Blick Bar	1916			The 4-bank "Blick Bar", originally designed in 1913 but blocked from production by Blickensderfer directors, is briefly put into production in March of 1916. Production lasted around 1 year before the new Blick Co. sold the rights to the new 4-bank to Harry A. Smith in 1917, who produced the model until 1921. It is not at all clear where the Blick Bar was produced, but probably in the same factory as the Moyer (in Syracuse, NY?), not at the Blickensderfer plant in Stamford.	4,32,137, 139
190000	1916	DEC	31		32
--	1917
--	1918				32
198100	1919	DEC	31		32
Blick 90/Roberts Ninety	1919			Built in the Blickensderfer factory, 90 characters machine, (30, with double shift), exchangeable typelevers for different character sets. The Blick/Roberts 90 has a distinct serial number series from other Blick models. Blick 90 was also sold in Europe as the "Gloria". Slighty more than 20 are known to survive, serials ranging from 141 to 1143 with occasional letter prefix.	4,13,24, 136,137
	1920
	1921
	1922			Fabrication of Roberts Ninety begins, after Roberts Typewriter Company (L.R. Roberts) purchases rights in 1919 Typewriter Co.	4
	1923
	1924			Production of Roberts Ninety model ended.	4
	1925
	1926			In 1926, the tools and dies for the Blickensdefer were sold to Remington (one report, however, dates the sale to 1927; see The Ithaca Journal, Ithaca, New York, June 24, 1927).	136
Rem-Blick Kx7xxxx	1927			Started Dec, 1927. Clone of Blickensderfer #5 after Remington bought Blickensderfer tooling from Roberts Typewriter Company in 1926. First letter of serial number indicates Model (Blick = "K") Second letter indicates Month: Jan=P, Feb=M, Mar=L, Apr=K, May=X, June=S, Jul=V, Aug=E, Sep=D, Oct=C, Nov=Z, Dec=A First number in serial indicates year number: KP8 = Jan, 1928	63
Kx8xxxx	1928
Kx9xxxx	1929			In the spring of 1929, Rem-Blick was offered in Sears Catalog at $24.95, but by the fall of that year, the price was two dollars less.	136
The Blick	1930			In 1930, Sears reduced the price of the machine by a few more dollars and truncated the name to The Blick. At this point, the "Rem-Blick" appears to have been remaindered to department stores as a toy typewriter, and is now advertised as "printing from a ribbon" (same as The Postal). Price advertised as $14.95 at Marley & Carew Gift Bazaar in Cincinnati., in the Cincinnati Enquirer (Cincinnati, Ohio), December 14, 1930. That same year, Sears offered the Porto-Rite, another Remington machine that employed the design of the Remington Portable No. 2. Remington introduced the No. 3 in 1928, thus freeing the design of its predecessor for the budget market.	136
	1931
	1932			Rem-Blick still offered for sale in 1932, for $10.98 at Stix, Baer & Fuller. From the St. Louis Star and Times, St. Louis, Missouri, November 25, 1932.	136
	1933			Rem-Blick still sold at $10.88 at the May Company. From the Baltimore Sun, Baltimore, Maryland, September 10, 1933.	136
	1934			Rem-Blick offered at Scruggs, Vandervoort, Barney toy shop for $5.98 in 1934. From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis, Missouri, March 26, 1934.	136
World-Blick/Weltblick
				There are four similar stripped-down versions of the # 5: The Home Blick (USA and UK), the Service Blick (UK), the Blick Visible (USA), and the World Blick/ Weltblick (Germany). The World Blick also was marketed in Austria and on the Czech area by a Czech dealer as the "Svetovid". The Home Blick in the UK was always sold with the wood case. The leather case was extra, but not the wooden one. In the U.S., no mention is made of the case in the advertising. In the U.S. in 1914, the Home Blick sold for $27.50. That is a discount from the $35 price for the #5, for which the production ended in 1913.	137
Electric
Blick Electric/Dactyle Electrique
	1902-1914			At least three different models in sequence; some argue for 4 models; they all appear to use direct current (DC Power). This might have been intended to aid sales in a big city like NYC and in areas that needed batteries for regular electricity. The Dactyle version was discussed in a 1905 article, but none are known to have survived. There is no documentation of how many were made. However, Western Union ordered enough to place one in all their trunk-line offices; that alone would have accounted for at least several hundred.	137

Dactyle Typewriter: Links to History

• typewriters.ch - Dactyle