typewriters c/d, s/d

I love my Olivetti...

http://www.typewritermuseum.org/history/_ill/olivettiv1.jpg

nice

Did all my undergrad papers on one of these, which I bought for $5 at a junk shop:

http://www.geocities.com/wbd641/DaxRCALLEN6fix.jpg

My wife's LC Smith:

http://i9.tinypic.com/4pj5pfr.jpg

Some really craezy designs on this page, such as

The Blickensderfer 5!
http://staff.xu.edu/~polt/typewriters/blick5small.jpg

The Crary!
http://staff.xu.edu/~polt/typewriters/crary.jpg

Le Champignon!!
http://staff.xu.edu/~polt/typewriters/americanindexsmall.jpg

Okay, I see the paper roller for the blickenswhatever and the champog, but the crary has me stymied.

And oh the childhood nostalgia, thank you internet -- I used to play with this one when visiting my grandfather 30 yrs ago!

http://www.typewriter.be/images/smithpremier10-02.jpg

(note THE ECONOMY of it lacking the numbers zero and one -- you were supposed to use capital O and small l respectively!)

http://blog.modernmechanix.com/mags/qf/c/ModernMechanix/7-1932/med_typewriter.jpg

note THE ECONOMY of it lacking the numbers zero and one -- you were supposed to use capital O and small l respectively!

When I took typing in the early 80s, I was taught to use lower-case-ell for 1.

I wish my number keys were horizontally arranged.

I recently bought a typewriter for my office and it caused a minor disruption in the force at Staples. The cashier was pretty taken aback as was the stock clerk.

Heeey, I have one of those!

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/103/365474347_9881e190ef.jpg

When I was in college and I was really stuck on a writing assignment it sometimes helped to haul out my manual typewriter and work on that for a while.

i have two antique underwoods, neither functioning completely, I need to take them to someone and get them fixed. can you even get inked ribbons for them anymoer? I hope so. I wrote my first book (at age 12!) on one of them!

i've got a manual typewriter, the keys stick and the ribbon doesn't move along as well as it should, but i make it work. it's totally crap, but i can't get rid of it. too, you can't replace what a typewriter does! i'm always on the lookout for a better one.

as far as finding inked ribbons go, a good place to look is in the very back of the supply closet at work. i mean the very back that you don't know that exists. that is where i found mine! i'm just glad that the secretaries before me didn't toss out everything obsolete.

Classic for typing thank-you notes and postcards, otherwise dud.

You mean you type thank-you notes? Isn't that the classic case for hand-writing?

Nabisco not OTM.

Wait, also, do you take a typewriter on vacation? That's the only time I'm writing postcards. That's cool and all, but a type-writer is kinda heavy.

NB: Hyphen SO not dead.

My grandmother had an ancient typewriter, and I still have these beautiful single-spaced letters that she typed on 5x7 stationary.

Also classic for that awful "How do pharmacists get those little bottles into the typewriter?" joke.

I used to keep a stack of embossed heavy-stock cards next to my typewriter at work, and would send little typed notes to people -- never actual postcards or thank-yous, but basically along these lines. Results were uniformly good.

(Handwriting things like thank-yous is meant to convey a personal touch; given that I have no one to dictate to and am clearly not using typewriter form letters to thank people for stuff only they have given me, I think in many instances the nice stock and typewritten message actually suggested MORE time and care and aesthetic consideration on my part than my block-cap handwriting on paper would have.)

OK, 3.516 OTMs.

I am so avoiding getting to work this morning.

akm, I'm pretty sure fresh ribbons should be easily available, unless your machines are so antique that they use a non-standard width -- many printing calculators may still be using them (in which case you'd obv have to respindle). You could have a search on the Pelikan site (under Schreibmaschinen etc) to see if your Underwood models are mentioned there.

Used ribbons (at least of silk, not so sure with nylon) can also be re-inked I believe. Probably somewhat messy though.

We should all be writing like this on this thread.

^

H/T Ned, this is amazing

https://madeinchinajournal.com/2025/05/02/lost-and-found-the-unexpected-journey-of-the-mingkwai-typewriter/

I still have one of the two underwoods I referenced above (the other got rusted up so went to the trash). It's been lovingly worked on twice by that guy Ken from the California Typewriter documentary by Tom Hanks (california typewriter has sadly closed so he works out of another shop in town which isn't quite as charming). We've also wound up with near-perfect olivettis and smith coronas.

Typewriters are über-classic, not because their utility is greater than word-processing software and laser printers, but because they were mass-produced, inexpensive enough that anyone who really wanted one could afford one, extremely reliable, yet they have more moving parts than a grand piano packed into a much tinier package. Plus, they look amazingly cool.