One thing I really appreciated about this Hermes Baby was that it was extraordinarily clean when I found it - I haven't had to dip and dunk or get rid of decade-old caked-on grease. It's fun sometimes, but it's also nice not to have to worry about it. Sure, she may not be the best typer mechanically - a rather shallow typebar arc and a plastic feel - but at least I can be fairly sure that I received it in the state Paillard (the manufacturer) intended.
The serial number in the mid-9 millions indicates, as per
Georg's write-up, that this dates from circa 1973.
Even then, it seems companies were not likely to gloat about their outsourced manufacturing. While all the Hermes typewriters made in Switzerland in the '50s and '60s proudly declared it, the badge on this just says "A Hermes Precisa International Product". It was most likely made in Brazil, and probably is of the same generation as the very first
cursive Hermes Baby I spotted on Flickr and lusted after for so many months.
Here is a link to the first typewriter,
a Hermes Baby, that I posted on the blog last July.
Whats wrong with the ABC's?
ReplyDeleteHappy blogaversary!
ReplyDeleteABCs get complaints for their escapement. But I recently struggled with one (a Cole-Steel) and finally understood some principles of the escapement. It is not that hard to adjust once you get the concept.
I was asking because I just got my first ABC and after some lines I just fell love with it. But now after writing some more, it just broke down. Backspace is not working, space is stuck and carriage does not move while writing. So I discovered that these should be rubber shim or something at the market place of this picture, but since this typewriter has been in someones collection for so long that rubber has probably been transformed to something else and gnaw away.
ReplyDeletehttp://i53.tinypic.com/2625noj.jpg
Congratulations on reaching a year of blog posts.
ReplyDeleteI am after a typewriter with a cursive font, too, but all the machines I find (well, actually not that many here) have Elite or some variant thereof installed.
Keep on typing.
Gratz on your *first* year of a fine blog! (:
ReplyDelete@sala: I have to say, I didn't respond to your comment because I don't know how I feel about your using my picture as a masthead on your blog... that is not very nice. Good luck with your ABC, I suppose, those are tricky to fix.
ReplyDelete@Richard: You are far more charitable than me - thanks for providing guidance that others might find useful too.
@Stationery Traffic: It will take a while! Especially if you don't want to resort to the 'Bay. It took me a whole year of looking to find a cursive typer in the wild, and I just about passed out from excitement... it is just so rare.
@Ted: Thanks!