It was our anniversary, and my husband got me a funny card that pretty much sums it all up:
He was a dear and took the kids to Maker Faire for the afternoon and left me to my own devices. I lay around the house eating bon-bons and cruising Craigslist and came to a San Francisco listing for a strange-to-me typewriter. The seller wasn’t sure what kind of typewriter it was, and it had no indication of branding on it.
It was very mysterious: a portable with no badge, no decal, no logo. It looked German. I did an image search at Google for “german portable typewriter” and spotted similar machines. Ah ha. Rheinmetall KsT.
The typewriter looked kind of horrible in the dark Craigslist picture, and that perversely whetted my appetite. I snuck out of the house and headed for San Francisco. I ended up in the vertical hills of the Excelsior District where even automatic transmissions flinch and the streets are as wide as goat paths. I found the address of the seller, parked in the middle of the street and fretted. I worried that the seller might be a Craigslist killer who preyed on unsuspecting typewriter collectors. I guiltily regretted not mentioning to my family that I was out on a typewriter hunt.
As I approached it, the house was invisible among huge trees and bushes and a tall wooden fence. I apprehensively lifted the huge rusty knocker on the gate and immediately it was opened by a golden child, maybe around 10 years old. She had been waiting for me. As she opened the gate, I caught a glimpse of a magical vista that’s only seen in Northern California: a cottage shaded by an enormous cypress at the base of a hill, rocky steps, wind chimes, a mossy deck with an old couch where a second beautiful child slept, Tibetan flags, a laundry basket full of stones.
I told the child that I was there for the typewriter and without a word she turned and made her way down to the cottage. When she returned with the typewriter, she asked me if I wanted the case. Sure. Back down the steps and back with the case. I gave her the money which she took silently, and I thoughtfully loaded my car. I never saw an adult. Was the child human? Did I just buy a typewriter from a hill spirit? Mysteries like this are all part of life’s rich pageant.
When I got home, I looked over my purchase. It was so much better looking in person:
I hadn’t realized that the ribbon cover and paper table were blue – in the Craigslist picture it had looked gray. The typewriter was very dirty, but appealing in its compact curves.
X Over It’s excellent post Post-war Rheinmetalls (1945-1962) is very informative. This Rheinmetall is missing the super-classy Rheinmetall 3D badge on the front. If you look closely at the ribbon cover, you can see a shadow of where a sticker had been. This is probably one of those KsT variants that had a Rheinmetall sticker rather than a 3D badge.
Serial number 564222 – stamped next to right ribbon spool.
I date it to about 1961 per the Typewriter Database
I found the carriage lock, released it, and tested the typewriter. The only thing wrong with it appeared to be a carriage release button that kept getting stuck – probably a gummy dirt problem.
Fur Ball
The typewriter appears to have been over-loved by a cat. I imagine that some happy feline spent many a pleasant afternoon curled up in the type basket.
The Rheinmetall KsT user manual is a delight – it assumes a very competent and somewhat fearless operator. Here are instructions for removing the carriage and type bars (!):

click to view larger – Rheinmetall KsT User Manual, The Classic Typewriter Page manuals archive
Well, what are you going to do? I can’t resist a carriage like this and this is a general user manual after all, not a service manual. Check out X Over It’s very entertaining KsT video.
Ghost in the Machine Episode II: The Phantom Name Badge
I released the carriage locks on either side and jiggled the carriage free from the machine. I used my air blower to clear out the layers of cat hair, dust and dander that coated the interior behind the segment.
The congealed grease had a thick layer of embedded eraser crumbs that I scrubbed out.
Hey what’s this? Oh!
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
I swear I am not planting these things for a good story!
It was jammed inside the guts in a way that it did not interfere with the mechanics at all. How many years had the name plate lain there, waiting for me? I would never have seen the hidden name badge without removing the carriage.
I carefully pulled it out – a little bent piece of thin metal (not foil or paper) with dried adhesive on the back but no generally no worse for wear.
What a jaunty, surfer-style font. A German surf-metal band inspired by the Beach Boys would have this logo.
From the Teachings of Blender:
If your typewriter is missing a part, check inside the machine first.
I’ll need to re-secure the Rheinmetall badge somehow – I am considering Super Glue for permanent adhesion.
This typewriter didn’t have any spools when I bought it. It needed three-hole spools, and all I had were four-hole ribbon spools.
I ordered some “Rheinmetall KsT” spools online. Unfortunately they didn’t fit. They were labeled Adler and the holes were too small for the spooling spindles. Drat! I really wanted to test the typing on this thing.
Then I remembered something. I had seen a stray couple of typewriter spools at Moe’s recently. They didn’t seem to belong to any typewriter and were just laying around near her typewriter collection. I was dropping off a newly-cleaned Corona 3 at Moe’s shop that belongs to her friend Alan, so I investigated the orphaned spools. Hurray! Three holes! Moe graciously gave them to me and they fit, they fit!
While I was at the shop, Moe told me that Mozo’s Antique Search and Rescue had been featured in the local paper last week. I am so fortunate to live near such a great place.
I am still cleaning the KsT, but it’s looking great after a preliminary wipe down. I am going to cautiously remove the foil dealer’s sticker from the front with a hair dryer to loosen the adhesive. I plan to re-locate it to inside the ribbon cover. I just hate seeing it on this poor typewriter’s forehead.
What “S 09/2552” mean? It’s on the back of the typewriter. Could it refer to Sömmerda where the Rheinmetall factory was?
I still need to re-attach the newly found Rheinmetall badge and figure out a solution to my missing shift lock key top. I might make a silicone mold and use a thermoplastic like InstaMorph to create a key top. Stay tuned.
Great score from the hill elves, and what an awesome badge to find safely inside! Love that typestyle (:
Wow, Moe is holding an old “novelty loupe” in the newspaper photo, haven’t seen one of those in years. Paper companies used to make them as giveaways to print shops to display (they’re about 20 times the size of an actual usable folding loupe). 😀
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So that’s what that is. If you are interested in the loupe, I can pick it up for you.
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heh, no. I gave away the one I had. they’re large and fairly useless, except as a display piece. Thanks, though! 😀
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Very entertaining! I do love a good story about finding and exploring a typewriter (and a slightly exotic one at that).
I’m pretty sure the symbol on the back of the typewriter has something to do with the socialist production system in East Germany. We should ask Bernie. 🙂
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Great story — you may find if you were to return to that address that it doesn’t exist, a sort of “Brigadoon” in SF. A lovely little machine! And that Rheinmetall badge (amazing it was there!) is almost cartoony. Love it. I look forward to seeing how it looks when you’re done with it.
I don’t know about the S in the triangle marking, but I think Richard is on the right track — Eastern bloc-made weapons were marked with different symbols to denote country of manufacture, and I think East German guns were marked with a 3 in a triangle. So this may be the same idea.
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Thank you for pointing me in this direction. I found this page about German rifle manufacturing and according to this site, the letter S inside a triangle was an East German quality mark.
http://www.network54.com/Forum/681456/message/1406137068/Reinhold+Manteuffel+%26amp%3B+Co
Next to the triangle S in the image on this page, it says, “Zeichen der guten bis hervorragenden Qualitat, Suhl – DDR, 1951-1961” or “Sign of good to excellent quality, Suhl – DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik), 1951-1961”
And I found a Wikipedia page on quality marks of the GDR:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCtezeichen_%28DDR%29
Which says in English translation:
“At the bottom of the quality label made numerical information relating to the origin of the product. There are several types of notation, a common variation is in the way “01/1452″. The first two digits indicate here the territorial base key of the district at (01 = Rostock), the following 4 digits are the operating point (1452 = VEB MTW).”
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Fantastic! Are you sure you didn’t just dream it? – oh wait a minute you posted pictures…. 🙂
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I follow the “pics or it didn’t happen” rule of law.
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Typewriter nymphs. Who knew?
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They live above the fog line in the hills and sell magical East German typewriters.
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Hi,
Thanks for this really interesting and informative info on your KsT.
I recently got a gorgeous yellow and green KsT (“Aztec 600”) and I was making the capital letter adjustment that you described. Can’t tell you what sort of evil spirit made me do it, but I took off the return lever and two loose washers suddenly appeared. I can’t figure out where the hell they go in the return lever connections. One is a tiny bit thicker than the other, same size hole. My return lever now does not spring back like it should.
I’m wondering if you could possibly do me a huge favor and take a look at yours and tell me if you see two washers somewhere in the return lever mechanism, and where they are.
I’m in San Francisco; sounds like you’re close. I look forward to hearing from you.
Thanks very much. Robert Stine zv75@yahoo.com. 415-242-9404
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Congratulations to you on your Aztec 600 and its incredible color combo of yellow and green. Green with envy here.
I would suggest a meet-up to compare typewriters, but I recently moved from the Bay Area to the East Coast – the dust is still settling.
I’ll take the top cover off this evening and take lots of pictures of the return lever area. We should be able to figure out where those washers go.
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I was trying to leave a big thank you on the blog, but for some reason it doesn’t seem to go through. Anyway, thank you so much. I really appreciate your help.
From: myoldtypewriter To: zv75@yahoo.com Sent: Tuesday, January 9, 2018 6:42 AM Subject: [New comment] The Mystery Machine #yiv2854259468 a:hover {color:red;}#yiv2854259468 a {text-decoration:none;color:#0088cc;}#yiv2854259468 a.yiv2854259468primaryactionlink:link, #yiv2854259468 a.yiv2854259468primaryactionlink:visited {background-color:#2585B2;color:#fff;}#yiv2854259468 a.yiv2854259468primaryactionlink:hover, #yiv2854259468 a.yiv2854259468primaryactionlink:active {background-color:#11729E;color:#fff;}#yiv2854259468 WordPress.com maryech commented: “Congratulations to you on your Aztec 600 and its incredible color combo of yellow and green. Green with envy here.I would suggest a meet-up to compare typewriters, but I recently moved from the Bay Area to the East Coast – the dust is still settling. ” | |
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Robert, I took the left side cover plate off and took this picture:
Could these be the washers that fell off when you removed the lever?
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Yes, they most definitely are, and I can’t thank you enough, because the shop manual for these machines doesn’t seem to exist online.  Maybe there’s one in a dumpster in East Germany.  I didn’t mention that at one point in my fumbling the thick washer dropped into the typewriter and I spent several evenings doing contortions with magnets, paper clips, and bright lights searching for it.  It seemed to have utterly evaporated, and the cloud of defeat darkened my days, until last night when I was typing and all of a sudden the washer appeared on the table under the line space lever.  I’d love to know where it was hiding, but has any mortal ever been as thrilled at the sight of a washer?  So now, thanks to you, I can put things back in order and try to keep in mind what we were all told as children:  If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I wish you were still around here, because I know we’d both be entertained no end by all our old typewriters.  I really enjoy your writing and I’m very impressed with your fearless knack for fixing stuff, so thank you also for the grand entertainment. I hope some day to be able to help you with some question about your KsT, but it looks like “The Mystery Machine” is doing just fine.
WordPress.com maryech commented: “Robert, I took the left side cover plate off and took this picture:Could these be the washers that fell off when you removed the lever?” | |
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One of the joys of working on these old machines is coming to the aid of fellow tinkerers. I am so happy that they were the washers.
Good luck getting it all back together and let me know if you need more pictures.
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I’m still stunned by what you wrote about the Corona 3 folding jalopy. It’s the only machine that inspires me, that pulls me along sentence after sentence. I’ve tried many of the classics that get so much praise, but they bore me. The C3 shakes thoughts from the branches of my mind, and no matter how much I want to use my other machines to justify their existence, some wind keeps blowing me back to the C3.
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I re-read my writing on the Corona 3, and it does sound overly critical. What I really meant to express was the anxiety I felt as I worked and typed on the machine. It felt elderly and frail and liable to disintegrate if I was a touch too rough. Funny thing, though, the typewriter had somehow survived a 100 years and will likely outlive me.
Preference for a certain typewriter “feel” is very personal. For myself, I prefer a heavy-duty “slammer” (Royal standards come to mind), something that will survive and thrive under my heavy-handed technique.
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I have the same EXACT typer..AZtec 600..same exact colors…havn’t seen another…got it years ago on echBay..lady just said it was German…never heard of it. $54..won the auction…beautiful typer…sadly a n alcoholic nut case who was spring some of my typers (we are in a 10 unit apartment building out in the country)…decided to pull down a sack of my typers and they crashed to the floor. two are busted…this is one…I got everything to work but the ribbon vibrator…but looking for replacement values I found a few. but NONE blue and grey except yours……love the Rheinmetalls……the Aztecs. some are Erikas. some Rheinmetalls….ps. I have found that East German typers often have a faint orangey-maple SMELL….did yours. I actually found a guy at Herman’s who knew what I was talking about…well im upset …but it think she’s repairable…..ps. I assume you know the carriage comes right off.
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My son says that this blue/gray color combo gives him Soviet submarine vibes. Ha! This Rheinmetall is one of my very very best typewriters – I love the way it types and it’s my go-to for long letters. I gave it a good sniff but do not detect orangey-maple smell. One of the first things I did when I got it was take the carriage off to give it a good cleaning so maybe I cleaned away the original smell. Cleaning it, I found its missing name badge lodged in its guts:

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That’s a cool discovery story. I;’m gonna try once more to fix the messed up ribbon vibrator..and if not..then I’ll take it (perhaps) to Tony Casino down on Long Island.The colors are special and subtle on these… One of the gems of my collection is a 1930’s Rheinmetall portable..in forest green!..I spent a few bucks on that auction! My hypothesis about the “scent”..is that it’s something in the felt cushions used often in these typers.I’ll be posting some of my typewriter critters on FB (antique typewriter collectors) this month. N.
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