| The typewriter is in good original state - complete and functioning. It is not polished (just love the smudge of over a century), but has been residing comfortably under a plexiglass cover for many years. Everything works smoothly - carriage transport, keys/typebars, the bell at the end of line... Serial number: 4594 I"ve always wondered if the serial number would let me precisely determine when this extraordinary writing instrument was produced. Richard Dickerson, writing in ETCetera #1[1] (may well be the most thorough source available for dating Franklins) in October 1987, established that about 19,000 Franklins were made, at a steady rate, from 1891 to 1907. Thus, you can date your Franklin approximately by using the following formula: (serial number / 1187) + 1891 = year. He conducted a survey among American and Canadian collectors and concluded that the machines are scarcer than most people would think, heading it "Surprising Scarcity". According to that formula the year of produktion of my Franklin would be late 1894, whereas Ted Munk"s Typewriter Database[2] dates it 1895. So far so good, but when I read an article named "Rethinking the Franklin" on the Typewriter Gazette[3] website it became really interesting. Wellington Parker Kidder originally filed Patents for the Franklin typewriter in 1889 and assigned them in 1891 to the Tilton Manufacturing Company in Boston, Massachusetts. Along with the fact that the Tilton Manufacturing Company was listed in multiple locations over the following years - at that time also in Portland, Maine - The Typewriter Gazette researched that in 1893 a series of fires destroyed the Purchase Street building that housed the Franklin Manufacturing Company. Furthermore they established a short summary of the various locations in which Tilton/Franklin were listed: 1889: Portland, ME; Philadelphia, PA; Hartford, CT 1890: Boston, MA 1891: Boston, MA 1892: Philadelphia, PA 1893: Portland, ME; Boston, MA 1894: New York, NY 1897: Portland, ME; New York, NY Along with tons of further information the article delivers, combined with the other sources named here, I can now date the year of production of my Franklin to 1893. Since there seems to be an overlapping in model numbers and the oval metal patent plate below the keyboard of my Franklin reads "The Franklin Typewriter Manufacturers" and "Boston, Mass. U.S.A" plus taking into account that it has 40 keys it should be able to distinguish it - by convention - as a Franklin Type II No. 3. It's more delighting with every day it ages... |
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References:
1: ETCetera #1
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