On Feb 6, 7:58 pm, "William Sommerwerck"
wrote:
wrote in message

...

I'm pretty sure this Selectric has the cloth reusable ribbon.
What does it mean by "reusable" and is there any way
I can reuse it? It is printing fine now, only a tad faded.
But still perfectly readable.

There are two types of ribbons. The older type is cloth soaked with ink.
Cloth ribbons can be used over and over, until there isn't enough ink left
to give a good impression. The ribbon spools automatically reverse at the
end of the roll; there's no need to "rewind" them. Cloth ribbons can be
re-inked, but are usually thrown away. It isn't worth the trouble, and it's
hard to re-ink a red+black ribbon.

Where is the best place to buy replacement ribbons? The ribbon I have
currently is only black so I would assume that I can only use an all
black ribbon.

The newer type is carbon film -- carbon pigment on a thin plastic base. When
the ribbon is struck, almost all the pigment is transferred to the paper, so
the ribbon can't be used again. These are designed to run in one direction,
and are discarded after a single use. They're used because the impression
simply looks better -- it's solid, without any cloth pattern.

Can I use a carbon film ribbon on this typewriter? I think heard
somewhere that they aren't interchangeable.

Thanks
Alex