UNIS tbm de Luxe is, possibly, the most widespread typewriter in former socialist-bloc countires. Produced in Yugoslav city of Sarajevo (today’s Bosnia and Herzegovina), tbm de Luxe was a typewriter model that was produced under a license from a famous Olympia typewriter factory.
For the most of the buyers from outside the socialist-bloc countries it was the Olympia Traveller de Luxe model- the development of Olympia ultraportative typewriters with more modern shapes, bright and saturated colors that catch the attention of everyone around. With the start of globalization big typewriter manufacturers like Olympia started producing their typewriters outside their home countries to lower the production costs, so Olympia typewriters started to be produced not only in Germany, Great Britain and Canada, but also in Yugoslavia and even in DDR. Not much had changed quality-wise, but this shift had allowed Yuglosavian manufacturer to offer these high-quality machines to countries like the Soviet Union. And because tbm de Luxes were cheaper than machines from DDR and more portable, as well as of a higher quality than what was produced in the USSR itself, a great portion of people preffered UNIS typewriters than other manufacturers. In Latvia of today, UNIS tbm de Luxe is one of the most common typewriters you can encounter, but because of its design it is nonetheless loved by the general public.
UNIS tbm de Luxe can be found in a variety of colors- red, orange, white, black, green and blue, but the most frequently found specimens are red and orange models.
