Marchant Pony B
Slick design from the Californian Marchant company, who worked out the kinks and came out with this light machine with easy to use carriage transfer that ticked all the right boxes. This is the Pony B version, which has register size 9 x 10 x 18, and is of the pinwheel principle, with rotating setting pins.This particular machine is a bit of a puzzle. The serial n° is 70122. I don't pretend I can make sense of the numbering by Marchant. Elsewhere on the machine, there is the number B1193.
I used to have another Marchant Pony B, with serial N° 71609, and a different number, A 643, stamped everywhere. (I thought the B would be for the larger model, but this Pony B had an A in the number ... your guess is as good as mine). Logically, the machine this page is about should be the older one. It also has black numeral rolls in the control register, whereas the newer machine had the colour scheme reversed with white rolls and black numbers.
Apart from a few issues (a lot of dust...
...as well as a broken clearing lever arm, and a broken carriage release, both of which I had to re-make - that was a bit of a challenge, because the arm needs to be really thin in the middle in order to pass through the pinwheel cylinder)...
...the machine was in really good condition.
What's exciting is the maker's plaque. Despite showing the exact same information as any other Marchant plaque, including the patent date of 1911 and 1916, the script on this one is different. Is it because this is a really early machine ? Normally the letters are much more gothic, also on older Marchants than this one, so I have no idea what the deal is with this one. It was originally delivered near the end of World War I to a tulip bulb merchant in the Netherlands (lack of, or unwill to buy German a German machine ?)
The maker's plaque (also notice the "don'ts" on the base board):
...and a normal Marchant maker's plaque :
The machine is much smaller and lighter than the Marchant Standard A shown on another page on this website.
Now for some pictures.
