Under a Rock With a Presumptuous Troll, Over The Moon With The Unprepossessing Yet Holy Grail Erika 9 Portable Typewriter

*Since writing this, I have become aware that the Erika Model 9 is available in a shiny black finish. I believe Georg Sommeregger has one. One (dated 1949) sold just a fortnight ago on eBay (from Germany) for $US191, after 45 bids (see bottom of post). I can well understand why. I will keep my eye out for one in shiny black for myself, now that I know how good the Model 9 is. But of course I will be very interested to know if its typing quality differs in any way from my 'horrid' gray one.

Also, in my typecast, I referred to a Model 8 when I meant a Model 5 as the Erika I have most frequently used in the past. The Model 8 Erika is the Model 9 with a tabulator (which I never use anyway).

A rough translation of Leonhard Dingwerth's description of the immediate post-war activities with Erika is this: "And yet, in the scanty remains of the once thriving company, work started in late May 1945, with the makeshift repair of some factory premises and facilities. A little later work was started in a modest way with the whole assembly of typewriters. The dismantling of the plant in the fall of 1945 and spring of 1946, as part of reparations, hampered the reconstruction until the summer of 1946. But already in the late autumn of that same year there was again talk of a regulated (?) pre-war model of Erika. 

"Meanwhile, the company Seidel & Naumann was expropriated and on 30 October 1945 was passed to the administration of the government of Saxony. A trustee continued the business. Through a referendum on 30 June 1946, the operation had become public property. The name was first Mechanik formerly Seidel & Naumann VEB. On 1 September 1951, the plant of VEB Mechanik formerly Clemens Müller [makers of Urania, Perkeo] was merged and was dubbed VEB Typewriter Works Dresden. In 1954, after the production of sewing machines (Clemens Müller) was significantly increased, it became VEB Writing and Sewing Machine Works Dresden. A year earlier it had the Saxon typewriters typeslugs factory Wilhelm Neumann incorporated as a unit, but the operation had to close in 1954 due to fire protection reasons (?).
In the autumn 1947 there were 890 employees at the plant, including design engineers, who had the task of developing a new Erika [portable typewriter]. In 1949 a new Erika could be put on the market, Model 8 with tabulator, shortly after the Erika 9 with no tab. And for the Oriental (?) writings a Erika 90 was developed.

Sold on eBay last month: