Month: August 2016
Ephemera Dump: 7th Phoenix Type-In, 2016
Operative Joe has recounted his mission and initial report already from the run he made to PHX from the ABQ. It was excellent meeting our fellow insurgent and sharing the Gospel of St. Christopher Sholes with the peoples of the Republic of First Draft. Many greets and funs were had and the Central Committee agrees […]
TWDB Update: Noiseless, Rochester and American Pocket Typewriter!
Following a lose thread from the last set of updates, specifically the designs of W. P. Kidder, there’s a few new links forged in that chain, starting with the Noiseless: The Portable numbers are an educated guess, since there were only about 6500 made over about 2 1/2 years between its introduction in Nov 1921 […]
1958 Remington-Rand Quiet-Riter Eleven – The 2016 Typewriter Hunting Season continues
There’s still a bit of pitting left behind by the mold that shows up in flash photographs. Maybe a bit of buffing compound might fix that. Flash photography also reveals that the keys are slightly different shades of green .. randomly. thankfully, neither of these things is apparent in normal light. Actually, now that I […]
W. H. Bennington: Gambler, Scoundrelly Politician, Horse Lover, Boodler, Spy, Shotgun Slayer of Felines, Mental Scientist and Typewriter Designer.
“And Satan Appeared in Kansas City…” A collection of news clippings from 1891-1908 tracing the activities of one Wesley (AKA: William) H. Bennington in the years up to his first *five* typewriter companies. For the first 3 years of his active political life, Bennington appears to have been a well-liked and active member of his […]
Molle Updated some more, and the Bennington Plot Thickens…
This weekend at the TWDB was mostly about more research into the details of Molle and Bennington. I made a rough stab at laying out a serial number list for Molle, and immediately more info and analysis from our friends Mark Adams and Tyler Anderson flowed in, allowing some very nice fine-tuning to that list. […]
Typewriter Database Update: Molle!
Well, this one wasn’t bad, though I did all the grunt work of hunting down sources before I found Robert Messenger’s blog post from Jan, 2013 where he’d already done most of that grunt work. Turned out to be a good thing, as I turned up just a couple bits that prolly weren’t available when […]
The Bennington/Xcel Mystery Deepens – a third Bennington and hints of a long con…
Sometimes you whack the pinata and all kinds of tasty stuff comes out. Such is the case of the “was it ever even built?” Bennington and Xcel, where we left off a couple of days ago smugly munching our Scooby Snacks — when Agent Polt dashes by and tosses a letter on Bennington letterhead, from […]
Crank up the Mystery Machine for another TWDB Update – Bennington and Xcel!
Hey kids, want to solve a mystery with me? :D Cue soundtrack (scooby doo) Here’s the mystery: On yesterday’s Fox page update, we see a note on the failed attempt by William H. Bennington of Bennington Typewriter to take over the ailing Fox Typewriter concern in 1922. Well, there’s a thread that needs to be […]
Typewriter Database Update: Fox! Plus bonus typer score…
The last links of the chain: TWDB updates for World, Boston, Garbell, Venus and Venus Portable!
Yep that chain from yesterday still had a few links to forge. It’s noted that the Victor Index is sometimes grouped with the World index, as both were made in Boston at about the same time. Because it was mentioned and needed to be linked, I made a page: Then, because a name variant of […]
Weekend Update at TWDB: Victor Index, Franklin, Victor and Victor Portable!
So, this weekend I made a few more updates to the TWDB. This time, rather than be inspired into a research frenzy by an uploaded rarity, it was a basically a diceroll that decided what rabbit hole I was going to go down. I had just written my last blog post on Friday evening and […]