I found a 1970’s Galaxie 12 today while doing some light thriftin’ – normally I don’t much like the Brown Plastic Case era SCM’s, but these latter-day Galaxies are usually good machines. Besides, I had to at least look for a datecode. For eight bucks, I didn’t pass up this one, and yep – brown plastic carrying case usually means a datecode label on the bottom of the machine.
What, may I ask, does the power spacer do on what seems to be a manual machine? I’ve never even heard of it before.
The power spacer just (when it works) advances the carriage the same machine-gun fashion that an electric machine does, except it uses a mechanical gizmo to flap a rod back and forth against either a spring-loaded stop, or in the case of these later SCM’s, a small rubber wedge that once was supple enough to provide the spring action. This allows the escapement to advance in rapid fire as the lever bounces back and forth against the spring stopper, with each swing of the lever allowing the carriage to advance 1 stop.
In an earlier 6Y type machine, this mechanism is elegant in it’s simplicity and tends to work well. In this machine’s case, it’s just too simple and cheap. Age killed it.
Thank you! I was wondering the same thing.
I am hitting thrift stores today and will look for brown plastic cases.
The first mention I have seen about the brown cases is in a 1976 Smith-Corona owner’s manual. The typewriters inside are always good; I was carrying one in Downtown Seattle–apparently I hadn’t latched it completely–it did a backflip onto the sidewalk–the only damage was to the margin stop covers! (and some small scratches)
I think it is more of a question of age than of case. I this sticker at least on my one-bank and I will check when I get home my other machines. Wouldn’t limit the search though. That being said, at the price you sure had a nice find today.
Love the warning notice, Ted. Right on! The many, daily evaluation requests I receive just go straight into the spam basket. The off-subject ones irritate the hell out of me me too. Even one or two bloggers are barred because of irrelevant comments.