Underwood No.5 in Hiragana

Machine · July 22

Hiragana is uncommon, but this one has some unusual Kanji as well

There are a reasonable number of Katakana machines floating around there, but not so many in Hiragana, even fewer with the interesting Kanji on this one.

IMG_0632

Hover over the keys below to see a tooltip with details about a key, click on them to see more detail in the sidebar:

IMG_0636
モ / ド (Modo)
ぬ / 特 (Nu / Toku)
り/ る (ri / ru)
ち / 50 ( chi / 50 )
と / $ (To / $)
Numeral 5
Numeral 4
Numeral 3
Numeral 2
Numeral 1
い / small diacritic mark
作表 (Sakuhyō)
ら / ? (ra / ?)
な / ? (na / ?)
ね / よ (ne / yo)
つ / は (tsu / ha)
そ / 祝 (so / shuku): 祝 = celebration
く / や (ku / ya)
Numeral 6
Numeral 7
Numeral 8
Numeral 9
Numeral 0
ト 上殿 (to jōden)
む / 甲 (Mu / Kō)
う / 乙 (U / Otsu)
ゐ / 丙 (Wi / Hei)
の / 丁 (No / Tei)
を / 戊 (Wo / Bo)
れ / ? (Re / ?)
ま / 割 (Ma / Wari)
け / 貯 (Ke / Chō)
ふ / 報 (Fu / Hō)
こ / ¥ (Ko)
え / ・ (e / middot)
上段 (Jōdan)
て / ひ (te / hi)
あ / ち (a / chi)
さ / せ (sa / se)
き / す (ki / su)
ゆ / 戦 (Yu / Sen)
め / 一 (me / ichi)
み / 再 (Mi / Sai)
し / ? ( shi / ? )
ゑち (we / chi)
勧債 / 債 (Sai)
上段 (Jōdan)

This business of restoration with stickers was not endearing. I'm sure the restorer meant well, but this is one that might have been more interesting left as it was.

IMG_0639

They also went pretty hard on the repaint, layering over the existing paint, though the new feet are quite decent for being harder molds.

IMG_0634

IMG_0638

There was an open question about what was below the machine, as there was only so much typing going on in Japan in this era, so it would have been interesting if there was special mounting to use in a cipher machine, but the combination of normal underside and the color selector makes me a little skeptical.

IMG_0642

Look at that toothy basket

IMG_0645

The slugs are pretty rough, but the Kanji have some incredible detail.

IMG_0647

I did find it interesting which keys they did and did not choose to replace, as well as what they replaced them with - this one shows how they lifted the number suite from another host, including the 1/L key as well as two ¥ symbols. In hindsight seems like there could have been a more usable choice here.

IMG_0651


More images of the keyboard. Notice the 3rd row from the top, showinging kō (甲), otsu (乙), hei (丙), tei (丁), bo (戊), though notably missing ki (己). These ordinals were used as type designations within military hardware, most notably among planes.

IMG_0653

Polished up serial plate.

IMG_0637

The tab brake is pretty worn down.

IMG_0641

IMG_8545

IMG_8547

Link copied!