@chrisaldrich How wonderful! I love typewriters and envy your collection. I have a little orange Brother Deluxe 250TR with a faulty Shift mechanism - the price I was quoted for repair was eye-watering so I just type everything in lower case!
@onewildcrow Typing everything in lower case seems so e. e. cummings—a '40s Smith-Corona Clipper fan, btw—like the black 1949 machine in in the front left of the photo.
I've fixed at least two different shift issues on these machines using videos on YouTube and either a screwdriver or a pair of pliers. If you can describe what your shift issue is, maybe we can track down a quick-and-dirty solution for you? My Brother Charger 11 (blue machine on the right in the last row) is fairly similar to the 250 and I need to pull it apart to fix a few things myself, so if looking at the shift set up on a working model is useful, I'm happy to help.
I think your lower case solution is so much more romantic though... Don't let me talk you into anything.
@chrisaldrich Going to be honest - I was much more interested in your card catalog in the background. Great collection!
@patrickrhone Which one? The '49 Henry Dreyfuss with tombstone keys in the front or the rounder green keyed '55 in the second row?
I'm holding my breath to find a '48 version with the grey center stripe in an elite typeface. Our fellow QDL typists include the likes Anne Sexton, Clifford Odets, Stephen King, Edward R. Murrow, Marlon Brando, Virginia Cowles, Theodore Sturgeon, S.J. Perelman, David Niven, and Claire Chennault.
@chrisaldrich More than 100 years ago, Smith-Corona (then called Standard Typewriter Company) was based in my little town of Groton, NY.
@patrickrhone Those mid-'50s Royals were part of what I call "peak manual typewriter". They will last for centuries.
@JohnBrady That's awesome. Is there anything left of it now? A museum perhaps? I'm planning a trip to New England to see some parts of Remington's old manufacturing infrastructure soon. Should I swing through Groton too?
@chrisaldrich As far as I know there's no trace left of their manufacturing operations. We have a tiny village museum that might have some photos etc., but I doubt that it's worth a special trip.