Claudia Typewriter: Another Surprise Package

From time to time, I'm a bit startled to find a typewriter listed on Australian eBay which has an unfamiliar model or brand name. Often I assume it's just a mistake on the part of the seller: once, on Trade Me in New Zealand, someone tried to sell an Underwood as a "Sherwood", simply because the first four letters had been worn off the paper plate and the seller made up what he thought should be the name.
In the case of this Claudia, however, I happen to know the seller, based in Sydney, have bought a couple of typewriters from him, and am aware he doesn't make too many mistakes when identifying the typewriters he lists.
But what surprised me was that the model name, unmistakeably "Claudia", was much more professional looking than the usual cheap and nasty re-branding of East European typewriters in Australia, notably Pacific and Waverley. And the Claudia is clearly East European: it's a Czechoslovakian Consul 233. The only other example of the professional re-branding of a Consul I have seen with my own eyes is on the typewriter which belonged to Australia's Nobel Prize winner for literature, Patrick White. White's Optima 233 is on display at the New South Wales State (Mitchell) Library in Sydney, though the dimwit curators there insist on claiming the letters O-P-T-I-M-A spell out "Olivetti", and nobody seems able to convince them otherwise.

Will Davis makes the point on his Portable Typewriter Reference Site that "several feminine names" were attached to Consuls, and he illustrates this with a "Brigitte" from the late Tilman Elster's collection. It is a Consul 232, again with a professional-looking re-branding:

But in Australia, the re-branding by the Pacific Typewriter Company of Melbourne (which still exists, by the way - the alternative re-branding name of Waverley comes from the fact that its headquarters are close to Mount Waverley and Glen Waverley) was something quite different, as this example, comparing a Consul 232 with a Pacific 233 from my own collection, shows:

Similarly, Bulgarian Maritsa 11s and 30s were cheaply re-branded, as Pacifics and Lemairs (again, from my own collection):

Will Davis also points out that Maritsas and Consuls were re-branded by an American company called Bundy (in this country, it's short for Bundaberg in Queensland, as in Bundy [famous Australian rum] and Coke). Anyway, Will shows a Maritsa as a Bundy and a Consul 233 as a Bundy re-re-branding, as a  Baldwin:

My favourite Consul in my own collection is this one: 

I can't pass this look at Consuls without toffing my cap to one of the latest additions to Richard Polt's wonderful collection, "from Saskatoon is a Cavalier Speedwriter - a Consul 221 marketed by Commodore circa 1970, possibly assembled in Canada" (I told you he takes much better photos than I do):

Somewhat less surprising was another new listing on Australia eBay this morning, a H.G.Palmer which is a SCM Skyriter (and before that a Smith-Corona Zephyr):

Though the re-branding on this one doesn't look too flash, H.G.Palmer, as the guarantee states, was once one of Australia's leading retail chains. The re-branding is not surprising because, a little more common than this Skyriter is the SCM Sterling masquerading as a H.G.Palmer. Here it is in its original form, although Richard Amery in Sydney and I both own the H.G.Palmer model (Richard regards it as one of the best typing machines in his collection):

The Skyriter is slightly more common in this part of the world as the British-assembled Empire Corona, mostly sold in New Zealand. Two versions of it from my own collection are shown here with an Empire Aristocrat (Hermes Baby) - and a similar Empire Aristocrat has also just joined Professor Polt's collection (from as far away as, of all places, Cincinatti):

Finally, the seller who listed the Claudia this morning was also one of two who listed Nakajima ALLs (also marketed here at the Pinnock - see the Australian pages on Will Davis's site). The interesting thing here is that the carriage and keyboard on the one on the left is identical to the (Adler) Royal I have shown on an earlier posting: