Month: March 2011

The Secret Policeman

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When the current “keychopper” drama on the PTF broke onto the Typosphere via Adowa’s post on Retro Tech Geneva, I made a snarky comment about Typerati Secret Police ninjas that later prompted this little vignette: …and then there’s this little snippet which I’d typed up on Einstein a day or two before – completely unrelated, […]

I need a typewriter pad…

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*ADDENDUM* I attempted to make a typewriter pad out of 4 mouse pads, as I happen to have lots of these Secret Society Wars mousepads hanging around. Result: utter failure. Witness the hard shift to the left after just 3 lines of typing. The mouse pads didn’t move, but it appears the top surface isn’t […]

My First Bells

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Um, yeah. That title is an obscure reference to a cassette-only release by the Minutemen in the early 80’s, so it’s probably more mysterious than meaningful to anyone other than me. :D That was a typecast I did yesterday on the Ollie 21 early in the day, then I got Ryan’s email saying the trade […]

All publicity is good publicity…

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So hey – quick note: Sara got a call from a reporter for us to go meet him down at Mesa Typewriter Exchange at 4pm for an interview, possibly about Bill’s shop, but maybe something about the resurgence of interest in typewriting (elsewise, why talk to us rather than just Bill?) Hopefully I can catch […]

Practical Typewriter Collecting

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Good evening, ladies and gents. Today’s sermon is for those who are newly inducted into the exciting world of collecting and admiring the writing machines of the past century. A bold journey awaits you, hidden on dusty shelves in thrift and antique stores, baking in the hot sun on rickety card tables at garage sales, […]

Drago, the 1920 Underwood #5

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Speaking of new blogs being discovered, here’s one that’s a couple years old, but the guy has a lotta machines: John E. Simmons, who offers Underwood manuals online: Underwood Repair Manual (1920) Underwood Standard (1930 – #3, 4 and 5) He also offers a bunch more manuals and documentation.

1920 Underwood #5?

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Ok, well, I *think* it’s a #5, but as the machine has a fairly thick coat of paint applied over the original labels and I know diddly jack about old Underwoods, it’s at best a semi-educated guess. I found this machine at a yard sale this morning, carriage frozen almost solid, tab key jammed into […]

Adventures with Ollie 21

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I’ve got the Olivetti 21 cleaned up and ready to trade/sell, and yesterday I dropped by Mesa Typewriter Exchange to see if Bill would swap me the old Hermes Ambassador that he has collecting dust on his back shelf for it. No dice on that one – as soon as we pulled the Hermes off […]

Olivetti-Underwood Studio 21

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It’s hard to believe my luck sometimes. After months and months of coming up dry on my thrift store runs, the past couple of weeks have been like Moses striking the stone and having a steady stream pour forth. Lately, I’ve been only hitting the most convenient Goodwill every three or four days – the […]

The Typewriters of Naked Lunch

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There’s been some uncertainty about what typewriters were used in the movie “Naked Lunch” by David Cronenberg. I’ve remembered them as a Smith-Corona Super-5 body from the 50’s (Bill Lee’s Clark Nova), a 60’s Olivetti Lettera 22 (Tom Frost’s Martinelli) and an Oliver (Tom Frost’s Mujahideen arabic machine). Recently I got into a conversation over […]