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Tuesday 30 September 2014

Olivetti Lettera 35 Portable Typewriter and Manual

Picked up typewriter, case and manual for a song at a recycling centre today. Too hard to resist. The colour is wheat, by the way, not taupe. 

12 comments:

Richard P said...

Good find! These are well made.

By coincidence, someone in the UK asked me just a week ago whether I had a manual for the L35. Now I can point him to your blog. I'll also put this on my website.

Jasper Lindell said...

You found a reasonably priced typewriter at one of Canberra's recycling centres? I didn't think it was possible any longer. Hope has been renewed!

Anonymous said...

So glad I found your blog and your delightful post about the Olivetti Lettera 35 because I just bought one!

Tim Baber said...

I just found a Thrift Store discarded Olivetti Lettera 35 as new in a slightly scuffed case. Personally I am a big DTP fan and now blogs of course. But it is too good not to mark its resurfacing. One owned by Cormac McCarthy was sold for charity for $254,500 but I see they can reach over £100 here. I am grateful for the material on this site. I worked for 30 years in Bournemouth where there used to be a typewriter museum (sold to the Council for car parking extra spaces) We had his oversized book on typewriter history in my library and when it was withdrawn I took it to his flat in Bournemouth as a gift. He had throat cancer and must have died since then, in the 80's. I do not know what to do with this as trying to hide my communications using a typewriter (like in a film) is a stage we have passed now, the NSA and Extreme Process Psyops has beaten me to find a way to opt out of that stuff.
Here is a link to my printing a newspaper: http://www.msbnews.co.uk/archives/msn7p9.html and monarch programming.com is me filling in what we never knew compared with this website: http://www.whale.to/b/nsa4.html I mention that as it makes an "overwind" or cloud now a very real usurper of what we used to communicate by creative thought reflection and an editing process using typing. I suggest typewriters like amateur radio, be stored and used with loving care..little else will be.

Robert Messenger said...

Tim. I think the author you are referring to was known as "Wilf Beeching" (not his birth name, he changed it by deed poll before war). You will find a short bio of him on the blog, among typewriter book authors. You will also find some questions about McCarthy's Lettera 32.

Ian said...

Great article.

Do you know what the difference between a 35 and a 35L is?

Patrice said...

Hello! We just got this typewriter and while changing the ribbon we seem to now have it stuck in the center. It is not moving left or right and the space key doesn't work it only types in one space position. Do you know what we might've hit?

DavidV said...

Hi! Great post and I appreciate the copy of the original instruction manual and patent page. My parents purchased one of these typewriters for me in 1981 whilst I was still in late primary school. At the time I recall I have several models to choose from in the shop including the Lettera 41/42? (with a red repeating space bar button) and the Lettera 35 in several variations. I chose a particular Lettera 35 model (same wheat colour as yours with metal case) that has the olivetti 'Quadrato' font. To this day it is the only Lettera 35 that I have seen with this font (most of the others seem to have a kind of Pica or Elite font).

There must be others around? Was this a common font or special order?

This year end (Dec 2016) I have retrieved it from my storage room and cleaned it up after nearly 15 years of storage. Mechanically it still works wonderfully and is a solid machine to type on. Will seek to replace the ribbon shortly.

Anonymous said...

There is a locking lever jst below the rolling wheel on the top right..

Anonymous said...

I am overjoyed to say the east to say that I found an Olivetti Lettera 35 this week in a local charity shop for £15! I am thinking of going back out to work part-time and need to polish up my typing speeds. This typewriter is perfect for this but I needed to find how to adjust the touch mechanism as I am a touch typist and found the keys to be too 'stiff. Thanks to this site I have now found how to adjust my typewriter, thank you.

D. said...

I have one, a gift I received few weeks ago. So fun to use, so pretty to expose, so well made to last! All the best from Italy! Davide

suktion_alex said...

How fun to find this blog, and other folks interested in some vintage tech! I just bought a Lettera 35 that appears to be in mint, unused condition (or barely) in its case for $120! Seems like a real deal, after looking around on eBay and such. There are cheaper ones, but usually thrashed; can't wait to start pecking away! A new ribbon was easy enough to find on Amazon...except I was sent the wrong one! The center hole is just too small...so I'm going to try and transfer the ribbon to the original spools; wish me luck! -Alex