Oliver Portable (1953)

The Oliver Portable Typewriter 
 
Year of production:  1953
 
Company:  Oliver Typewriter Co. , 80 Gloucester Road, Croydon, U.K.
 
Serial No., 5329441
 
The Oliver Portable was made in England by the Oliver Typewriter Manufacturing Co in 1953. This is one of the portables that Oliver rebranded and produced under its name, originally a Patria design.
 
History:
 
Canadian Rev. Thomas Oliver felt the need for a typewriter to write his sermons and decided to design his own. The result was one of the best known brands in the history of the typewriter. The first model appeared in 1895.
 
The typebars were placed like wings on the top sides of the machine, constituting a major step in the direction of visible writing.
 
The Oliver 3 was produced between 1900 and March 1907, while at the same time an identical Oliver 4 was produced with foreign keyboards for the export market. 
 
The machine would live to be one of the most lasting alternatives of the regular front stroke typewriter. Although production in the USA ended in 1928, the British Oliver Typewriter Mfg Co would continue production of the downstroke until after World War II.
 
Because of the relatively greater power of their striking, the Oliver was used by most companies as a stencil maker or "manifolder".
 
By 1920 or so other machines, especially those made by Underwood, were regarded as better for "business correspondence". Thus, for commercial sales, it was the original design that kept the company going until 1928. However, that very design limited the number of machines sold, marginalizing the Oliver to a "specialty" work typewriter.
 
More than one million Olivers were produced until the late 1920s, and the machine is fairly common even today, although complete and rust-free specimens are quite rare.