Your Humble Correspondent, From the LUX Coffeehouse in Phoenix
Magic Margin is correct – this was the best Phoenix Type-In yet! Loads of new faces and old friends graced the event, and the press came too. Megan Finnerty from AZ Central came and did stories for the AZ Central website, The Arizona Republic paper and the NBC affiliate Channel 12 News (link to video). Here’s the Republic Article:
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Tori, Al and I arrived early, and were the first to the LUX, and as soon as we started unloading typewriters from the car, a moped gang and their flagship Thunderbird mounted up and left, as if they knew we would be chasing them out of the Big Table. They were right to run. We had Big Iron, and we knew how to use it.
The Vespa gang with their flagship T-Bird that we scared off.
Having arrived early, I got the chance to inspect the typewriters that were a part of the decor of the Lux, I’m told the owner of the Lux is a bit of a collector himself. If so, I hope he’s only taken the expendible examples from his collection to live at the coffeehouse, because apparently coffeehouse life is not healthy for a typewriter. In most machines the ribbons were gone, the typebars hopelessly jammed and bent, and at least with the Olivetti Dora, keys had been broken off. All were inoperable for the purpose of a patron actually writing anything on one. It was a sad sight.
Olympia SM-9 and Olivetti Dora, after an attempt at unjamming the typebars
A nice late-50’s Smith-Corona Silent Super, needs a little TLC is all…
An SCM Coronet electric. There were also a pair of 70’s Olivetti Studio 45’s, but they were even worse off.
Jim’s Roxy/Rooy. Sweet machine!
Jim’s Skyriter and Ryan’s Navy Mill Royal
Bill Wahl’s Continental
Jim’s Royal Arrow
Brian Beach’s Royal Mercury
Tex, 1957 Underwood Golden Touch and Little Jake, 1933 Remington-Rand Remmie Scout
Bill Wahl’s Bennett and Claire’s Folding Corona 3
Jia’s Olympia SM-3
Ryan’s Monster Olympia SG-1
Ryan’s Facit TP-1
Marshall’s Cyrillic language Groma Kolibri and Ryan’s Facit TP-1
Ryan’t ever-popular Facit and Tori’s Olympia SM-9
A lonely Royal Sabre(?) on the floor. This machine was identical to a broken one I saw at a Goodwill not long ago.
Brian Beach typing on his excellent Hermes 2000. What he wrote is below:
Jim shows Bill Wahl a product sheet for a supplier he found for NOS Smith-Corona Change-A-Type sets.
Typewriter T-Shirt! :D
Marshall brought not only his Kolibri, but also some interesting Leica cameras and clones. He shoots 35mm B&W, so who knows when his pics will show up on the web (:
A Royal and a Delicious Mojito
Ryan is interviewed by Megan Finnerty of The Republic
Alan Van Types on “Indy” my Tower Skyriter
Me and my friendly Typewriter Repair Ninja, Bill Wahl
Oh, and here’s some random sheets that people typed at the Type-in and were left behind, so I grabbed ’em to scan in:
We Came, We Saw, We Typed!
Thoroughly enjoyed this!
Great pics of the typewriters and the action. That Rooy is veeerrry attractive.
Very nice post! All the photos are great and thanks for all the typing samples. I get the impression the event was very very successful and enjoyable.
WOW!! What a great event!! Thanks for sharing.
Great coverage, thanks. Just like being there (I imagine).
wow nice post. How did I miss that cool typeface on Brian’s 2000 when I was there?
Excellent report. It looks like so much fun!
A great feature of a type-in is being able to try lots of different makes, side by side.
Nice haircut, by the way. You clean up good for weddings. :)
Great reporting on what looked like a VERY good old time with typewriters and lots of enthusiasts! What a great event — really enjoyed all the typed narrative and pictures of machines and people.
I’ve got a Royal Sabre and Smith-Corona Silent Super like the ones pictured (except my Sabre is green with a hint of yellow). Very cool to see familiar machines and a lot of interesting ones I don’t have!
I’m jealous, we are eons behind here in living in the past. We are still in the Edwardian era. I can’t wait for the is time warp to speed up a bit and get to the machine age of typewriters so we can have a type-in too!
looks like a great day! Can’t wait for a link to some Leica’d B&W photos…