Bulbous rarity: Remington 3-bank
Not many of these are around - according to Richard’s Polt research the production started during Great Depression in 1935 and lasted only 6 months. Only around 5000 machines were made.
The idea with this model was to offer a bare-bone typewriter, without any bells&whistles, to be able to sell to customers who were tight on budget during The Great Depression.
No backspace key, no Shift-lock key, no bi-chrome selector, no Tabulator.
Margin release is realized directly by the lever on left side of the carriage - like on old Remington Portable machines.
But the bell is there! Essential to typing, ain’t it?
The coolest of all is that this is 3 1/2 -bank machine!
Instead of limiting keyboard to 3 rows and using double-shift mechanism for accessing 3 characters per type-slug Remington 3B is using standard 2 character slugs but they saved on number of key levers and type-arms by compressing numerals into their own slugs.
Symbols marked with red are accessible with Shift (also marked red).
Standard on may typewriters of that era is using “O” as a “zero” and small “L” as “one”.
No other machine has it marked so clearly on keyboard!
My machine came from a family which had it since three generations. I feel obliged to be a keeper of such treasure!
What makes it even more interesting is noticing that Swedish characters were added with different type of slugs.
One can also see that keys with Swedish characters have real glass on top of paper legends while all the rest are standard coated-paper legends as on all Remingtons from that era.
That can mean that the machine was converted at the dealership in Sweden or was a special order from the US.
Looking onto the segment one can see that the company saved on a few non-present type-arms. They also saved by not machining all slots in the segment casting!
My machine was mostly dusty and keys were not reaching the platen. It turned out that ribbon vibrator was de-coupled and its springy catch was tangled. That caused the problem with type-arms. After repairing that the machine types like a dream!
It happens to be quite an early specimen: 56th!
What is also rare is that it still has both of its ribbon spools - both Left and Right. That is a sign of a machine which was well taken care of.
For cleaning I only removed the ribbon cover - or rather type-bar riser as this bulbous part serves that function. It is made of aluminum casting.
Comparing the mechanism with Remington Portable 2 one clearly sees that these are, indeed, the same machines. Or very similar. Instead of movable mechanism for rising type-arms prior typing the 3B is using its bulbous contraption.
It is worth noting that both these machines type completely fine even when type arms are in their lower position. It just takes longer for them to come back into resting position thus will influence how quickly one could type. Rising them, like on Portable, or keeping them high, like on 3B, avoids this problem.
After typing a few pages on this machine I saw absolutely no irritation that Shift-lock or backspace is not present. Especially in modern days - when we type mostly for ourselves and rarely use backspace anyway - these shortcomings of this very basic machine are absolutely not disturbing.
I dare to go even further and agree with Typewriter Justice: the lack of Backspace makes it to even more streamlined typing experience. One just types away and does not look back until the machine spits out a ready page!