Victor No. 3 in detail

Victor No. 3 / serial number 9573. David B. Davis collection.

Recently, my father was quite lucky to find this immaculate and nearly perfect Victor Standard No. 3, which included its original shipping crate. The machine was very much complete except for its bell, and for the back two feet. Some of the type bars were improperly aligned as well. The machine was given to Your Typewriter & Computer, located in North Olmsted Ohio and which has become our base for heavy typewriter work. Craig (the owner) was more than happy to see this machine, and he and his repairman Dan had it ready in short order.

Perhaps the first discovery concerning this machine was the most important, and this concerns the shipping crate itself and what it reveals.

The machine's serial number is stenciled on the outside of the crate, on the end opposite that seen here. On the inside of the lid is a small paper label which indicates that the machine was shipped with a cloth dust cover, a cleaning cloth and type brush, and that in order to avoid extra charges these items had to be returned with the typewriter.

Returned? Does this indicate that the machine was mail-ordered? Not likely, I think. I think that the label indicates that the machine was shipped as part of International Textbook Company's program to teach typing, indicated also by Peter Weil's manual for this exact purpose shown on an earlier page. In other words, you received not only the course but the typewriter, and had to then repack and return the machine when the course was completed...unless you decided to buy it.

In this rear photo, the prominent main spring tension gear and the escapement wheel can clearly be seen. The arm sticking down on the left side of the rear of the machine (actually the machine's right side when viewed from the front) is the bell ringer. It is attached to a shaft that runs across the machine and which also holds the moving rack for the (decimal) tab stops.

This view of the right side of the keyboard and machine front shows the margin release button (silver, not labeled, lower right) which when pressed rotates the entire margin stop rod. The key to its left, by itself is the shift lock. Most interesting is the ribbon selector. This device is actually a screw-operated affair, and the long lever is actually a pointer which indicates, on the marked scale, the ribbon option selected. You turn the knob at left, and the helical groove on the horizontal shaft moves the pointer (which alters the ribbon selection.)

Above, the mystifying ribbon arrangement of the early Victor machines. The vibrator at center is pulled away from the paper at rest, and moves toward it as a key is pressed. Note that red is toward the typist on both spools, and that both spools rotate outward for takeup (the right spool clockwise to take up ribbon, the left spool counter-clockwise): a ribbon winding crank is located low on the left side of the machine, and this crank also pushes in and out to reverse the ribbon. Note also the two different ribbon yokes through which the ribbon passes on its way to and from the print point; that on the left is lower, that on the right higher. Figuring out the ribbon path on one of these the first time is tricky, but becomes easy enough after two attempts.

The decimal tabulator operator is at left, on the front of the machine. It is operated first by rotating it to the proper decimal place desired (the whole thing hinges at the bottom, and the upper end notches correspond to decimal places -- these are lined up with the aid of a short stud that aligns to the proper notch.) The operator is then pushed in -- the circular piece visible about two thirds of the way up the operator is actually the finger button. Rotation of the device actually slides the tab rack back and forth on a shaft on the rear of the machine, which is a clever design unlikely to fail in service.

Typing on the Victor No. 3 proved very pleasant. The machine has a fairly light touch, and is capable of fairly high speed. The tendency of the ribbon to come out of the complicated vibrator setup was the only real failing, and this was caused largely by the fact that a brand new nylon ribbon does not have the same coefficient of friction that the original ones did. This allowed too much slack to be fed from the supply reel. Feeding ribbon onto the left spool, and then setting the machine to move the ribbon left to right, completely cured the problem, however, and produced excellent typewritten results.

We're quite happy to be able to show you this machine in some greater detail than that usually provided in books or on the internet, and hope to do this with more early frontstrike machines in the future.

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