Talk:Oliver Typewriter Company/Archive 1

GA Review
I was sorry to see this nice-looking article languishing in GA Review, so here I am, to carry out the review. Please give me a day or so to have a thorough look through the article and to get back with my comments. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 00:05, 17 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Apologies, but real life has intruded, so I won't be able to conduct this review after all. I hope another reviewer picks the article up quickly. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 13:14, 19 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Real life does indeed have that tendency. Thank you for the copyediting.  Ɛƚ ƈơƅƅ ơƚɑ  talk 16:10, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, I really thought that this article would have been reviewed by now, so it's game on again. :)

Generally I think that this is a nice, informative article, and deserves to be listed as a GA. So far as the criteria go, I only have a couple of issues. The first is to do with the relationship between the Oliver Typewriter Company and the British Oliver Typewriter Company. The lead says that Oliver was liquidated into the British Oliver, but I don't understand what that's supposed to mean. Was the British company entirely separate from the American one, set up after Oliver's liquidation, or was it already producing Olivers before the American company folded?


 * Yes, the British Company was an entirely separate entity that did not exist until British investors acquired the American firm’s assets in 1928. I had been relying on the production dates to establish that the companies did not coexist, but do you think perhaps wording such as “was sold to the upstart British Oliver Typewriter Company” would clarify the point?  Ɛƚ ƈơƅƅ ơƚɑ  talk 00:22, 28 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I think that perhaps upstart is over-egging the pudding just a little. :) I had wondered if maybe the British company had already been producing liver typewriters under licence for the European market for instance. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 02:49, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

The second thing that isn't clear to me from the article is the size of Oliver's market share between 1899 and going bust. How did they compare to their rival manufacturers? I was a bit surprised to see that Oliver started up in 1895 and by 1899 had decided to sell typewriters door-to-door. What was driving the market for typewriters at home in the US at that time? What did an Oliver cost to buy? What proportion was that of an average weekly/monthly salary?


 * The typewriter market in the early twentieth century was quite saturated. Oliver was certainly a major player, but the substantial number of manufacturers and the lack of and dispersion of records makes it impossible to quantify a market presence.   I don’t think there was any special household demand.  Oliver was successful with households because they had people going door to door, whereas other companies marketed almost exclusively to commercial users (e.g. in trade magazines, etc). Simply put, Oliver was initally the only company really trying.
 * The introduction of the Underwood no. 5 is what really killed Oliver (and most other manufacturers) as it had two critical features: visible type and a 4-row keyboard. Just about every typewriter thereafter copied the Underwood, and those features essentially became mandatory.  Oliver’s fundamental design couldn’t accommodate the keyboard, so they lost more and more market share.  They dropped price from $100 to $49 when they laid off the sales offices to stay competitive (average annual income in the early 1900s was ca. $4,000 was $1200-$3000 for the middle class).  Ɛƚ ƈơƅƅ ơƚɑ  talk 00:22, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

On a personal note, I have a strong preference for the text in tables to be slightly smaller than the text in the body of the article, but that's obviously not one of the GA criteria. So if we can flesh out the couple of issues I've raised then I'll be happy to list this article as a GA. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 23:02, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
 * That might appeal more to me, too; I, however, don't believe I know how to change the size (tables aren't my thing). Ɛƚ ƈơƅƅ ơƚɑ  talk 00:22, 28 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I've reduced the table font size to 90%, so see what you think. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 03:38, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm happy with this article now, and I believe that it meets all of the GA criteria, so I'm going to list it as a GA. I'm sorry that it took so long, but congratulations on a nice piece of work. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 04:03, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Information from Beeching
Unfortunately, my library only has Beeching. Here is what information I could glean from it regarding British Oliver after the formation of the company:

"During World War I, the Oliver was used extensively by the British Forces. It was strong and found to be reliable under almost any conditions, whether in the desert or on the Western Front. In 1928 production was transferred to Corydon in Surrey, England, by which time more than one and a quarter million Oliver three-bank machines had been manufactured and sold. In Germany it appeared for a time under the name of 'Stolzenberg'. In 1931 the three-bank machine was discontinued and various agents all over the world [207] were offered the German four-bank typewriter 'Fortuna' under the name of Oliver. Four years later, in 1935, the production of the Halda-Norden standard typewriter under licence was produced as the Oliver Model 20. At the beginning of World War II in 1939, the British Government placed a substantial order with the Oliver Typewriter Company for the three-bank Model '15' which had proved so reliable. As a result of this order the Company re-equipped their plany with their old machinery and supplied the Model '15' in 'war finish' for use by various units for the forces. [208] After World War II, in approximately 1947, the Oliver Company resumed production of the 'Halda-Norden', then called the Model '20', which was was followed by a slightly modified version known as the '21'. Simultaneously, production started on the 'Oliver' portable which was a well established basic design and sold in various countries as 'Fortuna', 'Augusta', 'Imperia', 'Littoria', 'Mas', 'Nuova-Levi', 'Sim', 'Byron', 'Japy', and 'Patria'. The name 'Patria', however, was protected by Swiss patents. The Company lasted for some years but then discontinued production of the standard machine and concentrated on the portable, and decided to import from Germany the 'Siemag' Standard and sell this machine as the 'Oliver' standard. This venture was for some reason discontinued. At this point the Oliver Company appeared to be very successful. Fresh capital was introduced and they purchased in 1958 the Byron Typewriter Company Limited, previously the Barlock Typewriter Company, in Nottingham. The Oliver Company then followed several courses of action, importing at various times not only the 'Siemag' Standard but also the 'Voss' from Germany, sold as the 'Oliver' portable, and the 'Japy Beaucourt' from France, sold as the 'Byron' portable, but all these ventures met with little success. They therefore concentrated on the production of portable typewriters in Croydon. After some time the machine tools for the small portables were transferred to the Voss factory in Germany to produce a machine were re-appeared in England as the 'Oliver'. At this stage the Oliver company stated they were going to become a Finance Company, and there were rumours of their merging with a vast group, but suddenly, about 1960, everything seemed to be out of control and years later in 1971, the shareholders received a letter from the Official Receiver saying that the affairs of the Oliver Company had not been resolved; what did emerge clearly was that shareholders and ordinary creditors would not receive any return. Thus ended another famous Company which had lasted about eighty years. This also marked the end of the Barlock and the Byron Typewriter Companies, so that at one fell swoop two British Typewriter companies which had enjoyed many years of success disappeared." (206-208)


 * The book also has a large table of model numbers and whatnot. I'm going to look at the article and see if everything matches. Awadewit | talk  18:57, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I am just going to scan that table and email to Elcobbola. I don't want to make any mistakes and see a potential for mistakes arising. I'll scan later today, when I move to a different part of the library. :) Awadewit | talk  19:05, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok. I have the scan and I've emailed Elcobbola. Awadewit | talk  20:34, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Just for reference: Beeching, Wilfred A. Century of the Typewriter. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1974. No ISBN listed in book.

Information from Adler
I also found another "history of the typewriter" book by Michael H. Adler entitled The Writing Machine that has a little information on the Oliver Company in it. Here are the relevant sections:

"One of the great machines, it is probably the closest to an indestructible typewriter ever made. Of lateral down-stroke design, it had the inverted U-shaped type-bars banked to either side of the printing point, which gave the machine its unique appearance. There was a three-row keyboard, with double shift which moved the carriage in a front-to-rear direction. Ribbon for the impression. Successive models incorporated improvements and sophistications, but the profile of the machine changed little....Production in the United States ceased in 1928, whereupon it was resumed in England with Model Fifteen labelled British Oliver. The production closed in 1931, after which a standard four-row portable using the name was manufactured in various European countries. The Oliver was marketed in Austria as the Courier and in Germany as Fiver and Sotlzenberg." (322)


 * Adler, Michael H. The Writing Machine. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1973. ISBN 004652004X.


 * I don't know if this is helpful, but I thought I would offer it up since I found it. Awadewit | talk  19:13, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Olivetti?
Is the Olivetti simply the Italian Oliver? 81.156.82.215 (talk) 06:32, 4 April 2008 (UTC)


 * No, the two companies are unrelated. ЭLСОВВОLД  talk 14:38, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to remove date-autoformatting
Dear fellow contributors

MOSNUM no longer encourages date autoformatting, having evolved over the past year or so from the mandatory to the optional after much discussion there and elsewhere of the disadvantages of the system. Related to this, MOSNUM prescribes rules for the raw formatting, irrespective of whether or not dates are autoformatted. MOSLINK and CONTEXT are consistent with this.

There are at least six disadvantages in using date-autoformatting, which I've capped here:

Removal has generally been met with positive responses by editors. I'm seeking feedback about this proposal to remove it from the main text (using a script) in about a week's time on a trial basis/ The original input formatting would be seen by all WPians, not just the huge number of visitors; it would be plain, unobtrusive text, which would give greater prominence to the high-value links. Tony  (talk)  08:56, 28 July 2008 (UTC)