British Foreign Office Files & Rasputin

[vladm]

I am back from my vacation, and I have final conclusion of the story, I never had English typewriter before, so I missed all the fun having one. Now, I do have my own OLD TYPEWRITER, and I can tell you, image produced as British MI memo letter is fake,  here the reason why, lets review image closely:

and after look at the typewriter key's:

Can you see, key with number 1 missing on both sets! This is regarding all typewriters having both cases: CAPS and LOW, however number 1 present on typewriters with only portable typewriters having only CAPS letters, but on text we will not going to have any low case text.
btw, in another example from Phil, this mistake not present.

Phil,
Thank you so much for your explanation. Lets review both documents:

I had to enlarge correct document, and mark some information:


Registration under letterhead, is essential part, and never will be present on the right side of the document, unless its part of the standard stamp. Number on the right, usually related to registration for outbound correspondence (as you probably know, one department, should release memo/document, other will send).
Now, is something under "lips imprint"  , what I am seriously doubt, because if it got extracted or stolen from archive, I see no reason, why they should remove official numbers and leave letterhead for British MI.
We can not speculate, what could be under smashed dark section, because neither of us, hold the real document in our hands, and scanned quality is not allowing us to see anything under.

One more point, placing big question on entire thing, why did they put on police report, or translation to police report - MI letterhead, to increase visibility of the memo?

[Phil_tomaselli]

But nobody has ever said that the document you're looking at is genuine.  I think that it's a theatrical prop created to look good on the website using the words from original documents but not the documents themselves.

Phil Tomaselli

[Alixz]

For those of us who learned to type on the  "old,so very old" manual typewriters, the number one was not on the keyboard even in the 1960s.

We learned to use a lower case L(l) for the #1, and it was shaped differently than on our keyboards of today.

I don't know if that means anything to the document you are discussing, but it does explain why there is no #1 key on old typewriters or on documents that were typed on old typewriters.

[Forum Admin]

You're RIGHT! I had totally forgotten that when I learned to type in the "pre electric" typewriter era, we used lower case "l" for ones.

ugh, I feel so old now.
 

[lexi4]

As do I, FA 
In fact, I thought about that when I read this, but it was so ingrained I didn't even think to comment on using the l for the 1. Now that is just sad.
Lexi

[Alixz]

Having cleared up the lack of a #1 on pre modern keyboards, and taking a closer look at the documents posted here, I do see Vladm's point, though.

The #1 and the lower case l are not the same on these documents and they would be if typed on a machine without a #1 key.

There is a definite bar on the bottom of the lower case l and there is none on the the 1, which is opposite of what I just typed as an example.  My #1 has the bar and my lower case l does not.

That is not to say that there was never a typewriter in 1916 that did have a #1 key.  There may have been one with that key as so many different companies made typewriters and each tried to make their model different.  Not so today were we strive for conformity.

I wonder why, in their infinite wisdom, the creators of the early typewriters left off a #1 key and how they determined that a lower case "l" would suffice in its place.  I know that the random spread of the letters was done by someone who just tried to mix up the alphabet as best as possible, but I think he failed to realize that the most used keys are on the left hand and that right handed people out number left handed people.  There are entire words that can be typed on the left hand only. With the right hand only, not so many.

But I digress, yet again.  So Vladm makes a valid point about the lack of #1 key on the typewriters he has posted and the documents that he is comparing them to.  If that document had been typed on a machine in 1916 and that machine was like the ones shown in his post, then the #1 and the lower case "l" should be identical.  They are not.

[Forum Admin]

Phil T has sent me this image asking that I upload and post it for his "technologically challenged" self.  The point, is of course, that this is a genuine British military document from 1917, that clearly has a 1, i, and I, thus all three are present and were on period typewriters.

[vladm]

Phil T has sent me this image asking that I upload and post it for his "technologically challenged" self.  The point, is of course, that this is a genuine British military document from 1917, that clearly has a 1, i, and I, thus all three are present and were on period typewriters.

Correction this is not 1 or i or I, this is letter l (L) low case:



and look over here:

[vladm]

One more unusual sophistication for typewriter from that age:

Numbers are not aligned. I am not saying its impossible, but let 6 step out of line on the top and 3 and 9 step down from alignment, takes significant realstate and precise mechanics, considering folks in 1916th were happy to make typewriter just to print, and not looking for any sophistication for about 20-25 other years.

I am more comfortable with declaring this document as "prop", than finding some reasonable explanation, how modern "P22 Typewriter" font or similar to it, end up on 1916 document from Petrograd

[Alixz]

I agree with Vladim.  If I understand what he has posted.

On Phil's valid document, the ones and the lower case letters "l" are the same.  And they should be for the time period.

On the "prop" they are different.

I don't know about the height of the individual numbers at the time, but I think the only two types of typeface were pica and then elite.  I don't know which one came first.

   I loved good old pica.    Sometimes I wish we still had it instead of the myriad of different type faces allowed by our modern day computers.   

[vladm]

I agree with Vladim.  If I understand what he has posted.

On Phil's valid document, the ones and the lower case letters "l" are the same.  And they should be for the time period.

On the "prop" they are different.

you entirely understood my point

  I loved good old pica.    Sometimes I wish we still had it instead of the myriad of different type faces allowed by our modern day computers.   

Alixz - its totally up to you how do you arrange your settings, not only on desktop, but when you are browsing. FireFox, for example, allow you to replace fonts: you can switch from serif type of fonts to symmetrical and back without any problem.

[Alixz]

Vladm,

Thank you for the information.    I know how to switch fonts, but on my computer, there is no pica or elite for that matter. 

Pica was 10 characters to the inch and elite was 12 characters to the inch.  Then came the IMB Selectric with the spinning ball instead of striking keys and then there was the IBM that had a different number of spaces for each letter. " i" would be one space, "n" would be two spaces and "m" would be three spaces and so on and so forth. The typist had to memorize the number of spaces that each character used in order to backspace and correct errors.  That one was no fun at all.

But basically up until the early 1960s manual typewriters remained pretty much the same.

I wonder what brand of typewriter the British Foreign Office used in 1916?  One of the earliest was Royal.  I am going to do some research on this.  It is an interesting side to the topic of this thread.

[Colm]

The two British agents who worked against Rasputins influence on the Tsar, were John Scale and Oswald Rayner, the plot was to prevent Russia from ending the war early with Germany, so the Germans could not free up nearly 400,000 troops on the East.