Olivetti Lettera 32 typewriter: Neil Davis, NBC News

Olivetti Lettera 32 model mechanical typewriter in a green coloured finish. The chassis is cast from a die-cast material; the mechanism is steel, employing a downstrike movement, and the keyboard employs a QWERTY configuration - the contoured keys are plastic. There is a friction-fitted detachable green painted steel cover over the mechanism into which the Olivetti logo is impressed and painted white; and there is a steel black painted sheet metal covering attached to the base to protect the mechanism. An interesting anomaly of this model is the lack of a number '1' key; the thinking being that it could be produced from a lowercase 'l' key. The keyboard carries the '£' symbol rather than the '$' symbol.

The serial number 5834717 is impressed into the right hand side frame making this a 1970 to 1971 issue.

The name of the model appears on the front of the typewriter and there is a Thai sticker on the upper right hand side of the frame (see images); the sticker translates as "Pathumwan Typewriter" in large letters the address in small letters "172 Pathumwan intersection, Bangkok". Pathumwan is a district in Bangkok.

The corrugated rear of the typewriter bears a plastic label with the words 'made in olivetti plant barcelona (spain)'

There is currently no record of when Australian combat camerman Neil Davis acquired this Olivetti Lettera 32; certainly he used it when he he was working for NBC, as the inscription on the inside of the case clearly demonstrates, but Davis could have owned this typewriter well before then (the Lettera Model 32 being manufactured by Olivetti for 17 years, from 1963 until 1980), and just added his name and NBC when he started working for them. However, Tim Bowden, in his book "One Crowded Hour" mentions him hand writing, rather than typing, his dope sheets in 1972 during his time in Vietnam ("I packed the film up [and] wrote out the dope sheets ...", p 281), so maybe Davis acquired this Olivetti as a second hand example in Thailand when he started working for NBC as their chief of the news bureau in 1982.

Neil Davis was killed with his American sound recorder, Bill Latch, when filming an apparently routine coup attempt in Bangkok on 9 September 1985.

This typewriter was found in October 2019 in an audio-visual store just to the west of Bangkok.

Olivetti released the Model 32 in 1963; it was designed by Marcello Nizzoli and replaced the Lettera 22 Model (also designed by him, and released in 1949). Its compactness, portability and effectiveness made the Model 32 very popular with novelists and journalists and Olivetti was still selling this model until at least 1977-80.