Hermes Ambassador -- One Gargantuan Typewriter

To my surprise I found this at the workbench as I went to go out the side door.

Not only is this a Behemoth it has a wide carriage

Nicely packed, and it comes with a cover, instruction books, and cleaning kit.

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This is one strong carriage rail. solid machined aluminum and steel rails, and a paper injector.

Runs the length of the typewriter and then some

The knobs beside the spools move the card guide away from the platen.  The slider is the touch tension adjustment.  From very super light to quite heavy.

This was a joy to use.  I wrote a few letters before  the 2 page typecast. I have not had this much fun since I got my first office size Underwood.

This is a fun typewriter to use, but it needs 4 feet of lateral space to use.  The carriage is 24 inches long from tip of the return lever to the  end of the right platen knob.  Of course the carriage will not generally be used for its entirety, but it does require extra space for the wide carriage. At least I finally have a typewriter that I can feed file folders through to type the tabs.

I chose the letterheads because both are Michigan companies from the past.  There is quite a bit of information on the Duplex Phonograph Company on the Kalamazoo library web site. Included is a video of the photograph in use. The audio is quite good.

Fox letterhead courtesy of Richard Polt and his blog.

The Year is 2018 Already!

On the way to the hardware store last Saturday

The neighbor's trees yesterday.

Originally I was going to us my Hammond with some of the Hammond letterhead I have, but Mrs. M was still asleep when I did the typecast and the Hammond is in the bedroom closet amongst all kind of noisey things to move.

I chose the Oliver letterhead only to find the ribbon on my Oliver No. 9 has dried out.

Next best thing: one of my favorite typewriters -- my first Underwood office size machine the '47 SS. Like a Chevy SS this one could be called a Super Sport for as wonderfully it is to use.  I have 3 Underwood office machines in my collection and I'd put any one, or all 3, in a contest against any electric they are that much fun and easy to use.  (OOOOH, an idea for the next gathering of the Michigan Typewriter Insurgency)

Which brings be to yesterday's gathering in Montague, Michigan.  I decided to go when I saw the post on Welcome to the Typosphere, but since I did not get time to make an advance trip to spy on the establishment for handicap accessability I did not know if Mrs. M could go.  I decided to not go :(

Interestingly enough if I would have stayed in Holland it would have been a short trip.  Maybe in 2018.

P.S. Does anyone have any old Underwood letterhead that I could get a copy to make some copies from?