A short video of the Crandall New Model working.
‘The Crandall We Never Knew’ – An illustrated article
The Crandall New Model is among the most beautiful typewriters ever made. Its gracefully curved, ornate Victorian design is lavishly decorated with hand-painted roses and accented with mother-of-pearl.
The New Model Crandall, like its predecessor the Crandall 1 of 1883, also uses a single type element (see image below). The Crandall was the first typewriter to feature this innovation, appearing eighty years before IBM’s 1961 Selectric with its spherical “golf ball” type element. Like the Selectric, the Crandall’s cylindrical type element could be easily changed to type in a different font.
The Crandall New Model has a similar overall design to the Crandall 1 of 1883, but it no longer features proportional spacing. Additionally, the central key for lowering the ribbon guide was removed, and the mechanism for changing the ribbon direction was redesigned. The Crandall’s type element remained unchanged, about the size and shape of a finger. The type element rotates and rises up one or two positions before striking the platen, achieving 84 characters with only 28 keys.
One might wonder why the type element did not become the standard in typewriter design and why typewriters with typebars did. The reason lies in speed. Even though typebars (on the standard typewriter) are many separate hammers striking away, each hammer has a simple and quick action. In contrast, the single type element of the Crandall moves through a more complicated mechanical dance, requiring more force to type a character. To compound this, the type element requires varying amounts of force depending on the amount of rotation needed to bring the correct character into position for typing. This resulted in a keyboard with an uneven touch, which hampered typing speed.
The IBM Selectric, with its ‘golf ball’, types very quickly because the carriage remains stationary, with just the light platform carrying the single type element moving across the page, all driven by an electric motor.
This typewriter originally sold for $50.00 and $75.00.
“A first class two handed typing machine. Writing in plane sight, even to the last letter. Time is Money!!! We can save you both. Only high grade Machine on the market sold at a reasonable figure.”
