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For a month and a half now I'm trying to revive !typewriters@lemmy.cafe. I publish all blogposts, YouTube videos and podcasts about typewriters that appear in my RSS feed. It brings a little life, but nothing's more interesting than actual exchanges about things, instead of just link-sharing.
So if you collect, use or even if you're just curious about typewriters, join us! We'll love to answer any question you have.
Underwood, don't know the exact model. You might know:
It looks gorgeous <3
Gorgeous thing! The model is quite easily discernable: it's an Underwood Portable, in the 4-bank version (there were a 3-bank version too). Constructed between the end of the First World War ~~and the Great Depression of 1929~~ and the 1950s, it's a very beautiful machine!
If you give me its serial number (on the right front flange or leg by which the machine is fastened to the case board) I should be able to give you its exact year of construction, if you're interested.
Is this it?
Your machine is not only pretty, but also very interesting!
So, after asking on the typewriter Discord, people there confirmed my suspicions, there's something off with this number: it lacks a prefix and is black on white while normally they are white on black. Conclusion: it's probably reinscribed, so there's no way to know if it's the original one or not.
However, the features are coherent for a machine with that serial, so it's probable that it's the original one, but reinscribed after a service, for example. So it looks like you have a machine constructed within the first year of production. It turns 100 this year, or in 2026, that's cool :-).
But there's also an other possibility: there's stories that typewriter enthusiasts tell each others around campfires that some Underwood could have been assembled in Europe. Is the country of fabrication mentioned anywhere on the machine? Probably in the back, under the patents?
That's very interesting! Now that you pointed it out I can clearly see the area around the serial number being bare metal while the rest of that element (don't know what it's called) still has black paint, and the transition is somewhat uneven.
From what I can tell the markings suggest it being manufactured in the US?
It looks like it is, and if it is you have a very old machine! Probably from 1925 or 1926 (the first year of production). But there's something a little strange, so I'll ask people more knowledgeable than me and I confirm this claim, or not.