The beautiful and early Sun typewriter predates the Odell typewriter patent of 1889, which would copy this design, of a sliding selector at right angles to the carriage, with great success.
This example is the first version of the Sun index, with no carriage shift lever (a simple rod is lifted for spacing), two ink rollers (not one) and a platen that is covered with fine stitched kid leather. In addition, the characters that print to the paper are metal, while on later versions this part would be hardened rubber.
The Sun types only in capitals and sold for $12.
Here is a description of the Sun from its patent papers, “The object of our invention is to provide an inexpensive and yet complete type-writer of but very few parts, not liable to get out of order, requiring for its operation as few movements as in the case of expensive machines now in use, and which will admit of printing a sheet of paper of any length without the necessity of coiling or folding the same.”
“It is a Perfect Machine, and worth its weight (7 pounds, packed) in gold, both for ease of manipulation and excellence of work.”
