1970 Hermes 3000 #7062133

Status: Sightings
Hunter: Jere Hyrsky (JJH)
Created: 05-06-2024 at 11:24PM
Last Edit: 07-21-2024 at 02:11AM

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Description:

A very early 3rd generation Hermes 3000, with a wide carriage, the old Finnish Standard keyboard layout, and a rather cute and somewhat rare sans serif typeface called Epoca. The sticker at the back does not tell where it was built, but I am assuming France. No carrying case, but came with a Hermes branded dust cover. In good working order, except for the right side carriage button, which is currently out of place, and thus inoperable. A small piece of the carriage's right side panel is missing as well, so I guess that at some point the machine suffered a hard blow to the right side of the carriage, breaking a part of the side panel and knocking the carriage button out of its socket in the process.

Sold in July, 2024. It's a cool machine, but I have plenty of other typewriters I prefer over this. Perhaps some day I will try the earlier models.

Pros:
+ Full tabulator.
+ Touch control.
+ Four position ribbon selector.
+ Takes two A4 backing sheets with ease.
+ The design of the white keys looks and feels nice.
+ Margins easy to see.
+ Carriage is pretty easy to remove; even a newbie like myself managed to do it without breaking the machine.

Neutral
+/- I don't really mind the way it looks, but it is definitely not to everyone's taste.
+/- Touch control doesn't make that much of a difference.
+/- Wide carriage; nice if you have use for it, but undesirable if you don't.
+/- Sans-serif typeface. It's cute, but I prefer serifs myself.

Cons:
- The platen is a bit hard on this particular machine
- The print could be sharper
- The plastic bodywork feels and sounds cheap and flimsy.
- The touch control, ribbon selector and the large buttons at the top look and feel cheap, like they might break easily.
- If you accidentally press the edges of the wide and flimsy backspace button, instead of the middle, it won't work.
- Many of the controls are strange and unintuitive to use: I dislike the positioning of the backspace and the margin release. The margin mechanism is unique and an interesting piece of engineering, but unintuitive and easy to mess with by accident. The carriage lock system is also annoying. If this was your main machine, you would get used to all of this after a while, of course.
- Rather heavy and "mushy" touch, even on the lightest setting. It's not horrible, and I know that many people like it, but it's not my cup of tea.
- The lower parts of the paper supports protrude too far forward, and it feels like they are on the way a bit when feeding in a new piece of paper. They can also disturb the free movement of the paper when the top edge of the paper approaches them, so that instead of sliding upwards, the paper hits the supports at a too steep (almost 90°) of an angle and gets jammed. I guess this could be fixed by slightly bending the supports backwards.

Typeface Specimen:

Photos:

Hunter: Jere Hyrsky (JJH)

Jere Hyrsky's Typewriter Galleries [ My Collection ] [ My Sightings ]

Status: Typewriter Hunter
Points: 511

I have been looking for ways to spend less time on electronic devices, and because of this I started doing my writing and translation work with pens and pencils, and now on typewriters as well.

My intention is not to collect typewriters just for the sake of collecting them, but I want to actually use them for work and to learn how to maintain them myself. Will probably start getting rid of some of my machines after I figure out which ones I like the best. I'm almost done with the collecting part and figuring out which machines are the most useful to me.

I'm currently in the process of reviewing the machines I have acquired and tested. Reviews done so far:

Erika Daro Model 41
Hermes 3000 (3rd gen.)
Olivetti Lettera 32