THE CRÈME OF CRISPIES
My friend George has given me
his Glasgow-made Olivetti Lettera 22. George bought it from Hopwood Business
Machines on George Street in Launceston, Tasmania, in May 1963. It got a
lot of use and travel over the next 22 years, and it still has in it the last
ribbon George bought. It’s in tip-top condition and types beautifully.
The first time I typed with it, I was absolutely thrilled by
the sharp crispness of the elite typeface. So gorgeous, so clean, clear and
pleasing to the eye! So fresh (for a 57-year-old typewriter)!
The blue 22 first advertised with the changed keytops in late 1961
George’s gift completes a set for me – a set of bookends, if
you like, from the very start of Lettera 22 production in Glasgow to near the
end of that line, when the distinctive features of the 32 began to be phased in. A few weeks back I
acquired a taupe Olivetti Lettera 22 with the black keytops. Its serial number
is a surprise: XS659731. Ted Munk’s serial number database says, “Early Lettera
22 examples have S-Prefix serials”, but I can’t find reference to XS. Whatever
it represents, the 659731 figure shows my taupe 22 was one of the earliest ever
made. Ted says 22s were numbered up to 904,000 in the model’s first year of
production, 1950.
Thanks
to this 22 having all its paperwork inside the case, including the instruction
booklet and service receipts, I know that it was bought by a Mrs Rollinson at
Longs Typewriter Co, 86 Queen Street, London EC4. I can’t find any references
to this company online, and I’m wondering if there is any connection with
Christopher Long. From London directories on ancestry.com I can see the company
was around from at least 1938.
1940 and 1941 London Directories
First Australian advert for the 22, November 1951
Later Australian advert, June 1954
4 comments:
Congratulations on the fine typewriter. I also have a blue cover square key top Lettera 22 from 1963. I thought the blue case was the same as the Lettera 32 so I tried to put my Lettera 32 into it. The Lettera 32 did not fit. Up[on closer examination I noticed the Lettera 22 case is just slightly smaller. Most noticeable dimension is the front when sitting beside a Lettera 32 case. My blue square key top Lettera 22 is also much nicer to use than any of the round key top machines I've had or used.
Very interesting post. Actually, the Lettera 22 "blue bags" are significantly different from the similar Lettera 32. I have posted some picture of the bags of my Lettera 22 s/n 752481 produced in 1960 here:
https://typewriterdatabase.com/1960-olivetti-lettera-22.13668.typewriter
The story of the Olivetti Lettera 22 bags is very interesting. The material was produced by Resinflex, a company based in Turin that patented a specific process to produce fabric coated with polyvinyl resin with a silky finishing that was extensively used to cover high-end furniture (it was a favourite material by architects like Gio Ponti), buidings and exclusive cars and motorboats by companies such as Ghia, Vignale and Riva.
Adriano Olivetti made a very refined and expensive decision when he choose Resinflex as the material to produce the Lettera 22 at the beginning of the production, and for the Lettera 32 the company decided to change for something more in line with the necessity to reduce production costs and delocalize the production.
The company still have the original rolls used to produce the fabric supplied to Olivetti, and is also producing small quantities of the fabric for restoring vintage cars, motorboats and furniture.
If somebody is interested...
I read this post (and many others here featuring the Lettera 22) with great interest.
Just today I received a taupe 22 almost identical to the early “bookend” pictured here: a Glasgow machine with round black keys and no tabulation mechanism. The serial number is also an SX! The full engraving is SX718103.
Just to follow up my last post (other than by adding my name, as way of introduction), I bought the machine last week from a very well-known English restorer, who listed it as a 1958 machine, which is indeed the year that appears in the Typewriter Database for this six-digit range of numbers, but *without* the S-prefix.
I imagine, however, that a make-year of 1950 is much more likely, especially because of the absence of a tabulation mechanism (no red key or tab-set lever), which seems quite unusual and seems to be included as a standard feature in later production, with the 22s marketing stressing the "full-featuredness" of this portable and making a design statement of the colourful red key.
I have a harder time explaining the absence of an early-style embossed Olivetti logo on the paper plate of my machine and Robert’s. I assume it was a feature lost in a very early phase of the series’ standardisation. Mine also has the very small, almost delicate letter labels on the round, black keys. There seem to be clear design / style differences in the early run of 22s still to be fully understood. Taupe itself seems to have been dropped from use later in the line (when?), with ads mentioning only "Rosa, Verde and Celeste" as the available colours.
Lastly, my guess is that the lone S prefix stands for “Scribe,” the original name of the line. As a hypothesis, a slightly later ‘XS” prefix might signal an official departure from the Scribe-designation if not the the serial-number sequence ("ex-Scribe", if you will). Just a thought...
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