This machine was orginally constructed by Wellington Parker Kidder in Massachussets around 1890. The production started in USA (brand Wellington) and in Canada (brand Empire) in 1892. Neverless the machine was an American construction it was developed only by Canadian factory. Canadian Empire sold the patents to European company in 1898 and Empire were started to be manufactured in Germany by Heinrich Meyer company from Frankfurt.
First european production typewriters were sold as Empire (1898-1900), but after introducing some improvements the brand was changed in 1900 into Adler 7.
Protos was the clone of Adler 7. It's production started in 1922, also in Frankfurt. The production was mainly exported to U.K. Protos production was closed in 1925. Another clones of Adler 7 were made shortly after I w.w. in Poland under brand "Orzeł".

AEG Mignon 4

Mignon typewriter was constructed by AEG around 1900. The first model (Mignon 1) was not decided to be mass produced and less then 100 were produced in the years 1903-1904. You can see such Mignon 1 in Leipzig museum.
Improved version 2 was introduced into the market in 1905 and produced until 1913. In 1913 Mignon 2 was replaced by Mignon 3, very often called "Vasanta".
In 1923 Mignon 4 was introduced. That machine was produced until 1933, where all the AEG typewriter production was moved to "Olympia". Concept of Mignon was used for Olympia Plurotype.
Since after I w.w.when all the German patents were cancelled (one of the point of Peace Act) some Mignon clones appeared on the market. In USA it was Yu Ess made in New York, in Czechoslovakia - Tip - Tip and probably some others.
Mignon were very popular typewriter those times - main adventage was the easinest of font and index card changing. It's hard to believe but you can type quite fastly using that device - 120 strokes per minute is nothing special after some training.

F.K. Mała

Idea of this machine was born in 1935 in Swiss company Paillard from Yverdon. Paillard introduced into the market two versions of this smart device - basic "Hermes Baby" and lighter - "Hermes Featherweight". Apart from orginal Swiss production licence was given to British Typewriters Ltd from West Bromwich that in 1936 started production of Featherweight model under brand "Empire Portable". In 1950 also "full" version of Hermes Baby was introduced under brand name "Empire Aristocrat".
Licence for lighter version of Paillard machine in 1938 was sold to Polish company F.K. (Fabryka Karabinów). Shortly before II w.w. small amount of those machines was produced in Warszawa. Here you can see one of survived F.K. Mala typewriter.

AEG Olympia Traveller de Luxe

Concept of Paillard Hermes Baby was so good that typewriter was produced during long years. After Smith Corona took the British Typewriter Ltd some parts of "Empire Portable" were replaced by plastic ones, the same changes were made by Italian Montana from Torino producing Paillard patent based typewriter from 1961. In 1971 Unis from Sarajewo (former Yugoslavia) had begun to produce typewriter based on Paillard concept. It was marketed under brand AEG Olympia Traveller de Luxe and own - Unis Traveller de Luxe.
I have bought that typewriter in 1990 thinking it will be very useful for my essays typing (I was so bored with my old Łucznik). Half a year later I have bought my first PC, so this typewriter was almost never used.

Next items soon!