Groma Kolibri - Typewriter - 1950-1960

Do you know that feeling when you get something that is just a touch different? You get it with this Groma Kolibri. The first thing that stands out is how surprisingly small it is, and especially how flat. Where most portable typewriters still bulge quite a bit, this one stays almost flat. Ultra portable we call it, and that isn’t a empty boast: it’s more compact and lighter than a ‘normal’ travel machine.

But small doesn’t mean you sacrifice comfort here. On the contrary. Typing on the Kolibri is delightful, and with those low keys it almost feels like working on a modern keyboard. A typewriter from 1955 that feels like something from now; that remains remarkable.

Another plus: this unit has a QWERTY keyboard. That isn’t as obvious as it seems, because the Kolibri comes from East Germany and so typically appears with a German QWERTZ layout.

The Groma Kolibri was built by Groma (Gustav Rößicke Maschinenfabrik) in Chemnitz, Germany. A real piece of East German design history.

One quirk you can expect in such a compact machine: the 1 is missing. Don’t worry, you simply reveal it with the lowercase letter l. A decision had to be made about which characters would make it, and thus the 1 disappeared from the keyboard. An exclamation mark did get its own spot.

Model: Groma Kolibri
Year of manufacture: 1955
Notable features: ultra portable, ij, ! and the florin sign for the guilder
Body material: steel
Ribbon: group 1
Includes case