Serial No. CR296632 : Manufactured about 1941
I found the Remette in a jumble shop somewhere in San Antonio, Texas, and kept it in the storage space under the back of my Volkswagen van. I spent many a blistering Texas afternoon writing letters to my family on that Remette in the back seat of that old Volks, the only place in San Antonio where I could find a little privacy.
I bought it because, even though it's a homely little machine, there were so many things I liked about the Remette. For a start, it was the most compact full-keyboard machine I'd seen up to that point. Barely taller that its keyboard, the platen is hanging off its backside instead of jutting out at the top, and the key set is laid out bare to the world in a half-circle cut out of the cover of the machine. I had a Corona Number 3 in my collection that was much more compact than the Remette but, with its condensed keyboard, it took a lot of practice to use. The Remette, by contrast, had a standard typewriter keyboard that anybody who knew how to touch-type could sit down at it and start banging away.
© 2009 Dave Okonski
