Optima Elite Portable Typewriter

Since I wrote this yesterday, I have tried in vain to find out more about this model. The serial number database gives no clues, at least not for Optimas, regarding the seemingly low number of 13702.

My guess is that this was an earlier, cut-price version of a design which at the top of the range used a high-gloss paint finish, the more familiar, centred metal name badge (rather than decals) and the fancy four-peaked paper support, and that it dates from about 1952 or 1953. Here is a photo taken at Optima's Erfurt plant in late August 1953, showing a couple of models with the flat paintwork similar to mine (perhaps the paper support is simply missing from mine?):

It seems the first Optima portable made - that is, as an Optima - was a version of the early 1930s Olympia Simplex (aka Elite, Progress). This was made by Optima until 1953, long after Olympia had moved on to more stylish designs such as the SM series (see examples of the first Optima portables below).

Optima also continued to make the much slimmer Plana until 1959. Optima remained in Erfurt, which is the capital city of Thuringa and the main city nearest to the geographical centre of Germany.

The official break with Olympia in Erfurt does not appear to have been legally sanctioned until 1951, two years after the German Democratic Republic came into existence. Indeed, Erfurt became a part of the Soviet Zone of occupied Germany on July 3, 1945, when American troops left the city. So Olympia-Optima must have been in limbo for quite some time.

My understanding is that Olympia staff won, through the International Court of Appeal in The Hague, the right to resume using the brand name Olympia, with a factory in Wilhelmshaven, a coastal town in the far north-west of Germany. Thus the Olympia brand was thereafter entirely based in West Germany.

In about 1952-53, Optima started to develop its own designs, distinctly independent of the pre-war Olympia portables. Possibly the most detailed and accurate outline for Optima is contained in a PDF of Robotron's history at robotron.foerderverein-tsd.de/stk/robotronOpt.pdf

Even this, however, is very difficult for a non-German speaker to follow. It would seem that just before the time of the arrival of the Soviet occupying force in Erfurt, there was an attempt to transfer 1.8 million Reichsmarks, or 35 per cent of the share capital of the Olympia works, to Hamburg (but to whom I do not know). Because of a suspect processing error, this did not materialise. "This left the entire share capital of the company in Erfurt. Without these 'mistakes' [it was] not safe in Erfurt" and the production of typewriters was discontinued.

"From 1946 the works belonged to the Soviet stock company (SAG) and was incorporated into the group 'Totschmasch'. The operation was then 'Olympia Office Machines Ltd for Precision Engineering Plant Soviet Erfurt'. After the transfer to public ownership the operation between the 'Olympia Erfurt' and 'Olympia Hamburg, Wilhelmshaven' was judicially reconstituted. [After the] product name dispute the Erfurt company was renamed in 1950 as Olympia Office Machines Erfurt and in 1951-52 as Optima Erfurt VEB office machine works." I hope that makes things a little clearer.

I have found on German eBay this one shiny black version of my new Optima Elite:

It would seem the far more common Optima Elite portables, with the high-gloss finish and centred metal name badge, came after this model. They have a more rounded ribbon cover, a much smaller opening at the top of the cover, a silver trim around it, and a new paper support design. The bottom half, however, appears to be identical. Here is one from my collection:

Here is an Optima display, again from about 1953. The Plana and the Elite can be seen in the foreground: