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Wednesday 1 February 2012

Amazing Amaya: Latest Typewriter on my Wish List

Swissa image courtesy of Georg Sommeregger
As I was hunting for my missing Swissa Piccola namebadge a week or so ago, Richard Polt and I got into a conversation - yet again - about his little shiny black 1930s Patria.
The subject this time was the stylish, eye-catching winged logo Patria once used, as Richard pointed out on this gorgeous example:
Of course, the whole Patria family was beautifully presented in the March 2010 issue of ETCetera, with an article on Spanish typewriters by Richard, Alfredo Sirvent and Fransa Marin. There are many images of Patria and Amaya typewriters in it.
This also includes a fabulous family tree chart based on Will Davis's research into the Japy-Patria-Swissa-Oliver-Byron-Amaya-Voss-Pulsatta group, sweeping across Spain, France, Switzerland, Britain and Germany.
Obtaining a 1930s Patria like the one Richard has is becoming something of an obsession with me. So much so I put an image of Richard's Patria as the desktop background on my laptop when I went to Spain the year before last, to remind me to keep an eye out for one. I saw Yosts, Rems and Royals, but no luck with a Patria.
Anyway, having taken note of the winged logo on the image of a later model Patria Richard sent me, I was surprised to see it crop again today on an image of an Amaya portable typewriter I happened to glance at.
I hadn't taken much notice of the typewriter in the image before, and it took me a while to work out the brand name. Once I had, the ETCetera article, which included the Amaya, came back to me.
And when I went searching on the net, and found one for sale for $180 on Etsy, a new typewriter suddenly went on to my wish list.
It's been a while since I added to the list. I never seem able to make any inroads into it, so it just keeps growing, and I try to keep it out of sight and out of mind. But then something like this happens, and I just can't help myself. Gotta have it ...
The list, by the way, would include (in no particular order):
Optima P1 (like the one Alan Seaver owns)
1930s Patria (like Richard's)
Mody Blick (like Herman's)
Pastel coloured Rooy (like Adwoa's)
White Corona 3
Gold-plated presentation Royalite (like the one in the Powerhouse Museum)
Sterling silver Corona Sterling (like Alan's)
Sphinx (to give to Richard on his 100th birthday, when I'll be 116)
Sholes & Glidden (in my dreams)
Crandall (like Martin Howard's. Ha!)
Caligraph (here's hoping!)
Pink Cole Steel
Bright yellow Montgomery-Ward (like Alan's, again)
"New" Featherweight with silver-ringed keytops (Florian put me up to that!)
Original Webster-Brother portable in excellent condition
Calanda
Red Barr
Green Bar-Let (like Herman's, again)
Underwood 5 in nice condition
Royal 10 in nice condition
Royal Standard in nice, working condition
Olivetti M1
Halberg
and on and on it goes ...

2 comments:

Martin A. Rice, Jr. said...

Gad! How pretty!

shordzi said...

Robert, it is definitely time for you to come to Switzerland, a small country filled with Patrias - and also Calandas! I have found several Patrias of the first generation over the last years, most of them not in excellent condition (for some reason, each of my machines has one small defect), but I will keep my eyes open. I recently visited and photographed the factory building of the original Swiss Patria in Pieterlen / Perles. Personally, I find the French licensed Japy P6 even more beautiful. Not to speak of Max Bill's fabulous and most successful redesign. It's one of my favourite typewriter families!