My enthusiasm does not reach to the modern ones(except high end ones I'll never be able to afford), I know some of them are beyond bad. Yes, the plastic gears came into play in the later part of the 60s, not the 50s. the machines still worked well until that top gear started to fail, but hey, once I hit 40 parts of me weren't so great any more either. Find one from the 50s, down there I know of a couple Brother badges. Empisal(some were Brother, some were Maruzen/Jaguar), St. James and LeMair are ones I've seen but I don't know when they were made. I have an internet friend in New Zealand who's even had a couple 50s Brothers shipped over to him from here, he likes them that much.
Cari