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| To mark the first day of ITAM, I visited a new thrift store for the first time: Brocki-Land Zurich. Just like Citroën-Garage, it was initially designed for car parking. |
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| And this place is huge! It's probably as big as Citroën-Garage, but there's one check-out and not many independent sellers - everything is much better organised. |
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| In a separate room, with a sign reading "Lamps", there's shelves full of printers, vacuumers - and electronic typewriters: |
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| Bertastrasse. No typewriters, as usual. |
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| The Royals at Citroën-Garage, next to each other - for the first time. |
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| Hermes Baby. |
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| Olympia Carrera de Luxe electronic typewriter - new here. |
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| Swedish PlentOgraf |
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| Also new: Brother Super 7900 - a quite spacy brother with ball head. |
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| The Horde - untouched, except for the keys of the Hermes Media, which aren't jammed anymore. |
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| The owner of this store (with an esoteric touch) on the second floor was sure that he had a typewriter, but couldn't find it. |
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| At Salvation Army: A new Olivetti wedge. |
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| And, to my great surprise, the Tippa was still there. I didn't expect that one to stay for long - it's reasonably priced and at Salvation Army! |
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| Snowy Bertastrasse - no typewriters at Berta 6. |
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| Citroën-Garage: The Hermes Baby, the longer the more beat-up, moved to the other side of the aisle - and got a hefty price tag. |
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| The Royal is still there, accompanied by two sewing machines. |
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| Bertastrasse |
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| Inside Berta6 - no typewriters. Click to enlarge any of the images. |
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| Citroën-Garage: The Horde: IBM, Hermes 3000.3, Adler, brother, Lettera and PATRIA. Antonio told me that the Hermes 3000.2 had been sold - I don't know if it was sold for the stellar asking price of Fr. 125, though. |
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| A Royal meeting in Brocki-Welt at Citroën-Garage: A double-glass Royal 10 (Fr. 60), as well as the "old" Royal standard, marked down from Fr. 45 to Fr. 30. |
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| The Hermes Baby that didn't appear the last weeks returned - with a new ribbon and on a nice desk. |
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| View from Hardbrücke, Prime Tower on the left, Salvation army in center and the train station on the right. |
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| Two old companions - the Olivetti lettera 38C and the brother electric, joined by a new black wedge - an Olivetti ET compact 60. |
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| When I was about to leave Salvation army, I spotted this suspicious case next to my feet. |
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| It contained - a plastic Olympia! The machine typed reasonably well and included a new ribbon - I don't think this will stay at Salvation army for long! |
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| Inside Salvation army. |
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| Under Hardbrücke. |
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| Bertastrasse - the leaves are gone. No typewriters in the thrift store either. |
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| The Hermes Standard: Probably found a buyer. Only the Royal is left at this shop at Citroën-Garage. |
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| And this is - the ominous Helvetia. I somehow had already assumed that the Helvetia would in fact be a PATRIA. |
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| It was a bit dusty, but one thing I noticed were the glass keys: On my PATRIA (which has a broken mainspring), there is only a metal frame, but a plastic keytop. This one has a paper keytop with glass cover. Also, I think that the embossed brand name is not present on mine either. |
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| Tragic flaw: The carriage return lever must have broken off at some point. Otherwise, it typed well, pretty snappy. But without return lever nor case, I didn't really consider getting it. S/N: 22119 - rather low. |
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| The M44: Still there. The price is clearly too high. |
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| At Salvation Army: No changes either. Both the electric brother and the electric Olivetti Lettera 38C are still there. |
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| Bertastrasse |
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| The normal typewriter space is empty - there isn't a single typewriter left in this shop. |
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| Disturbing sight at Citroën-Garage: Batter boards, announcing the construction of a "skyscraper" (keep in mind, the highest building in Switzerland is Zurich's Prime Tower, 126 m, just a few steps away from Salvation Army), 40 meters high. I knew that the thrift stores were just a temporary use of the building, but I didn't expect that to happen that fast... |
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| There are still typewriters - at least for now: The Olympia sits still there, next to its old companion, the Hermes Standard. In the background, however, a new Royal Standard with round glass keys appeared - asking price Fr. 45, 5 Fr. less than the Hermes Standard. The Royal works, but I have to say that I didn't like its touch; too short and heavy. |
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| The Underwood Finger-Flite, however, is gone. |
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| The Horde saw another re-arrangement and... |
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| They got new price tags! The Lettera, one of the more expensive ones in the old pricing, is now the cheapest - the Hermes 3000.2 is now "Vintage 60's" (I hate that apostrophe!) and costs a whopping Fr. 125. |
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| In the small store with the bacon-smell, the scanner-Olympia and the yellow Brother were gone as well. |
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| In another store, however, I found this magnificient Olivetti M44. Its serial number seems to be 978, very low - and it is stamped in a place where there's nothing on Peter's M44. |
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| M44 Details. |
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| Salvation Army - the Prime Tower would be 90° to the right. |
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| At Salvation Army - the Lettera 38C is still there, but there's something lurking in the background... |
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| A Brother AX-45, a lot like my first own typewriter, only with the addition of a screen. |
