Olivetti M40

Hello everybody, here we have a piece of history of Olivetti. It’s the mechanical typewriter Olivetti “M40 SCUOLA”.

The word “Scuola” means school in Italian. So we know this is a model intended for schools. Quite particular.

This typewriter Olivetti M40 was designed around 1930 by Camillo Olivetti.

For Olivetti it has been difficult to start the production of this typewriter because there was the need to build parts with high precision, and there had been many delays due of this.

But soon this typewriter became the most diffused typewriter in Italy, because of the quality, soft touch of the keyboard and speediness of writing. This model has been sold very well also outside Italy.

Not very portable, because it weigh around 18 kg. So it was a typewriter mainly for office use. This model has 90 spaces, it means you can use a sheet large enough to type 90 characters In a line. There were also larger carriages.

This typewriter is the first model of M40, built from 1930 to 1938. You see it because there are round feet instead of being square, and it miss the lateral and back covers. Olivetti built this typewriter till 1948, selling more than half million pieces.

If we take a look at the keyboard we see there isn’t the 1 and the 0 in the numbers. Now it feels strange, but it was common to use the “I” and the “O” instead.

There is the Italian layout with accented letters, very common in Italian language, there is the shift block and the backspace, and every button has a label, protected by a little glass plate.

If you want more information, please look at the video here!

Here there is a video on removing yellow paint from a Olivetti M40.

And the use of a Olivetti M40 in front of a fireplace