Great to see you writing again! Interesting typewriter; haven't seen one like this before. Thanks for posting pics of Dog. May your type bars swing again soon!
Good to see you post again. Happy winter. I remember living in PA and we used to get hammered with deep snows in February quite often. March seems a bit late. Those Optimas are quite nice typers. I finally got to use one this past autumn.
Your Optima is a nice machine. Interesting that I should just discover this post, as I have just sent off a letter written with mine, serial no. 1975220 so made right around the same time as yours. Same color and case, but no decals on the back, not even a "Made In ..." tag. I get along with it quite well, even with the carriage shift. That's not surprising as I discovered from a Robert Messenger post (5 January 2012) that it has an Olympia heritage and I grew up with an SM3. If I glean correctly from Messenger, when Germany divided into East and West after WWII, Olympia in its original home in Erfurt in the Easter sector became Optima, while a few former Olympia employees set up shop in Wilhelmshaven in the West and continued the Olympia name. From what I've seen from the typewriters that have come my way, and from what others have noted, is that Olympia Wilhelmshaven continued with its fine design, manufacturing and quality control, as exhibited in my high school SM# and my much later acquired 1972 SM9, continued into the early 70's, but subsequently declined, while Optima, despite our brainwashed impression of lazy, drone-like Eastern workers, continued producing excellent products into the 90's. I puzzled over the lever on the left side of the keyboard for a bit, then finally realized it is a de-jammer! What a fine machine. A letter is headed your way.
Great to see you writing again!
ReplyDeleteInteresting typewriter; haven't seen one like this before.
Thanks for posting pics of Dog. May your type bars swing again soon!
Great post. My letter goes in the mail today!
ReplyDeleteGood to see you post again. Happy winter. I remember living in PA and we used to get hammered with deep snows in February quite often. March seems a bit late.
ReplyDeleteThose Optimas are quite nice typers. I finally got to use one this past autumn.
Your Optima is a nice machine. Interesting that I should just discover this post, as I have just sent off a letter written with mine, serial no. 1975220 so made right around the same time as yours. Same color and case, but no decals on the back, not even a "Made In ..." tag. I get along with it quite well, even with the carriage shift. That's not surprising as I discovered from a Robert Messenger post (5 January 2012) that it has an Olympia heritage and I grew up with an SM3. If I glean correctly from Messenger, when Germany divided into East and West after WWII, Olympia in its original home in Erfurt in the Easter sector became Optima, while a few former Olympia employees set up shop in Wilhelmshaven in the West and continued the Olympia name. From what I've seen from the typewriters that have come my way, and from what others have noted, is that Olympia Wilhelmshaven continued with its fine design, manufacturing and quality control, as exhibited in my high school SM# and my much later acquired 1972 SM9, continued into the early 70's, but subsequently declined, while Optima, despite our brainwashed impression of lazy, drone-like Eastern workers, continued producing excellent products into the 90's. I puzzled over the lever on the left side of the keyboard for a bit, then finally realized it is a de-jammer! What a fine machine. A letter is headed your way.
ReplyDelete