Mr Oliver is back in operation!

This green little fellow took me many evenings to bring back to life. But it was fun and eventful journey, with many “aha!” moments.

As a predecessor to most modern typewriters it has some cool mechanical solutions which amaze me. Most of them were developed further into what we now see in modern machines. Some of them were abandoned for reasons which I don’t understand.

My journey through this wonderful mechanism can be seen in more details here.

It was called a “visible typewriter” since it allowed seeing what is actually typed. Before it there were many constructions which printed on the bottom of the platen - to check what is being written the operator had to stop and lift the platen to check the print. Such machines were called “blind typers”.

Below is a gallery of restored machine, with her “honest patina” which I have decided to leave, as a part of her history.

Carriage is easily removable, with smart draw-band catch which re-attaches the draw-band upon reinstallation of the carriage. Why was this abandoned in later machines?!

Restoration details can be seen here.