A Home For The Hermes Ambassador

When I brought it into the house and it fit the Hi-Lo typing table I lifted the tables wings to see how much space I could get.  More than enough for an Ambassador.

The footprint is so huge it takes nearly the entire center section of the table.

Had to test the note holder.

And type a note

Notes sent from my Hermes Ambassador and Curvex desktop fountain pen.

This has been a fun year in our new location.  The 28th of this month we will be here for our first full year.  Last year this time we were packing, typewriters, lots of typewriters and associated things as well as a ton of electronics of all kinds and almost as much photography gear.  We left plenty behind, but still have TOO MUCH STUFF! 

I'm satisfied I finally got our taxes done.  Sometimes I wonder is it better to live in a country where they just say 'you owe this much. pay it.' or in the USA where we tell the government what we owe based on complicated forms and calculations.  I sometimes think a flat tax is better, but I'll take the present method. I'm sure what we get next year will be .....

The Hermes Ambassador is really one easy and fun to use typewriter.  I never thought anything could get any better than an old Underwood office size typewriter.  The Ambassador is so smooth and well built it gives all of my Underwood typewriters a run for their money, and the Royal HH typewriters. No comparison what so ever.  The Royals I have do not even come close to being as good of a machine as the Ambassador.  Both the HH and Ambassador typewriters are built like tanks, but I'm sure the Ambassador will far outlast any HH.  Then we all have our favorites.

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.

.

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.