Tiny red-supergiant: Antares Parva
It resembles Hermes Baby in a way the outer shell is covering the machine. But that is all regarding similarities.
This machine is a different and I dare to say much better than any other ultra-portable typewriter I have or tried.
It came to me at the price of peanuts and the only problem it had, apart from being dusty, was dried-out ribbon and deteriorated feet. Otherwise all was working fine - and once I test typed on it I got so impressed by the feel and smoothness that I rushed to open it, to see the guts and give it a good clean.
The whole frame and panels are made of aluminium. Very lightweight and sturdy. Sound-isolation on bottom and side panels is accomplished with thick paper-like cloth. Apparently to save space, it is an ultraportable after all.
Panels have cleaned very well, as a last touch I treated them with Fulgentin - it makes colours more vivid and stand out nicely.
Bare-bone machine started to reveal its features.
Interestingly, the crown is made as a separate piece, standing away from the basket. I recon it makes the machine more silent while performing its function of stopping type bars and causing them to “snap” onto paper.
I brushed and blew out all dust. No chemical cleaning was needed (thanks goodness nobody sprayed it with WD-40), only for ribbon vibrator’s arm I had to use a bit of my typewriter’s soup.
Quick job!
Before assembling back the machine I had to fabricate new feet as old ones were far gone.
Same with space-bar cushions. Luckily, typewriter repairmen has an easy life in Sweden - spare parts can even be bought in Biltema!
Well, they call it gummigenomföringar but don’t be fooled by that.
In this case I build each feet from three parts.
No glue needed - they sit just with friction. Final product fits the bill.
The machine is assembled in no time, the only fiddling was needed when mounting side panels - one needs to simultaneously mount spring-loaded side pins, used by the outer shell.
Unlike Hermes Baby the outer shell in Parva is made of bakelite. I’m tempted to entirely remove this paint - this amber gold material beneath can look intriguing when entirely revealed.
I leave it for now and search for new ribbon for this jewel.
Although the machine came with nice, metal spools I wanted to try carbon tape I got from Charles. My trial to use it on Urania failed miserably, I was hoping that Antares - being much more modern construction - can handle such thin ribbon.
Yes it can! As seen on used part of the tape: the mechanism spaces characters apart enough to not cause overlapping.
I was cocky enough to put Olivetti-type spools (with carbon tape already on them) into Parva. They seemed to fit although are a tad wider.
Type quality did not impress me thou. I was expecting dark, sharp print. Instead the characters are sharp, yes, but not that dark as I want.
To have a benchmark regarding how carbon text will look like - to rule out that the tape is deteriorated - I put carbon paper sheet and type through it, in Stencil mode.
This is how it must had felt before “visible” typewriters appeared on the market - typing blindly, not seeing the result directly.
Comparing both methods shows - apart from smudges caused by carbon sheet - that the print is marginally better using the sheet than with this NOS-grade ribbon.
Well, seems that Parva and Columbia tape do not like each other. I was not satisfied - such fine machine needs to have proper ink ribbon to show its full potential.
Moreover - after a while I managed to jam the machine. It turned out that Olivetti spools, being too lose on ribbon-advance shaft, were wiggling around and occasionally going too far on the side and jamming the machine.
Disappointed, I removed carbon-tape spools and winded fresh, Pelikan ribbon onto original spools. The result was stunning! How light typing became and how much darker the print is!
Now we are talking! Fresh ribbon and “Bob is yer uncle”!
Out of curiosity I took out my other ultra-portables: Groma Kollibri and Hermes Baby, to size-compare them with Parva.
Although bigger than other two - and not as sexy as Kollibri - Antares has the best typing feel of them all. It also shares carriage-tilt idea with Groma, shifting is so light that feels like basket-shift mechanism.
While Kollibri is still the smallest and thinnest of all - mechanical MacBook Air of that time - it is also very heavy, compared to Hermes Baby and Antares Parva.
Parva has nicely marked line spacing options - with free wheel setting marked as “0” position.
Overall Antares Parva beats them all, at least for my taste. Typing action is soo light and smooth that touch-typing is no problem at all.
Lightweight machine with small Elite-like font and nice design makes it a go-to typewriter to take with me on a hiking trip.