This typecast was written Tuesday, and since then I’ve been inundated with raw scans and a spreadsheet put together by TypesHalfSpaces. A vertitable treasure trove of information on the RaRo type foundry, which I have not had time yet to process. However, look for a big reveal on Georg Sommeregger’s blog soonish regarding the RaRo foundry catalogs. I think we’ll be learning a great deal more about the foundries and the typefaces they supplied to typewriter manufacturers in very short order. :D
UPDATE: and here it is: RaRo: Alfred Ransmayer & Albert Rodrian
And one last teaser: We may soon be getting high-quality scans of ‘Liste der Herstellungsdaten deutscher und auslaendischer Schreibmaschinen’: 1941, 1950, 1953 and 1962 from TypesHalfSpaces and her source in the Netherlands. There might even be more material we as yet don’t know about lurking up there in the frozen North.
Stay tuned for more, including the exciting changes in store for the Typewriter Database’s second year…
Wow! What a treasure trove of information! I can’t wait to see the results. I know of only one source for information on type slugs and he is the only one (Peter in NY).
Dear Reverend, some up-front information on RaRo // aka the torpedo twins // aka the RaRo brothers, can be found here: http://typewriters.ch/Ransmayer_Rodrian_RaRo.html. Other treasures to follow!
P.S.: The google translate option offered on the site is not as c****y as it used to be. There is progress in algorithms.
I have a stack of scans to make a good document from, or possibly two – still figuring that out. To be of best use, I think the image retouching/tweaking needs careful attention and TypesHalfSpaces (Marlies) set us off to a great start with a consistent bunch of scans.
Yeah, Marlies is pretty amazing – I’m hoping that the PDF’s you’re making can be the start of us being able to offer printable-quality copies of a lot of the factory/dealer documents that are the source for the Database as downloads directly from the references page, so collectors can examine them directly for research.
I’ve been trying to turn my scans of the OMEF books into PDF’s and not having much luck, probably because I don’t have Acrobat or anything that’s really good at PDF creation. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in taking on that task? I’d love to offer them as downloads too.
Given your kit, you might replace scanning with taking a digital photo of each page. If the camera is locked off and the copy is level and registered maybe under plate glass, you could originate very quickly. Drop a line if you want to pursue.