Having found a US-Made Royal Sabre-style “Sears Portable” this past week, I realized that TWDB now has a few each of the two different Sears machines that were specially manufactured for Sears by the Royal Springfield plant in the US. In examining them, I came to the realization that I had also had the oldest […]
Category: The Typewriter Database
Montgomery Ward Typewriters 1941-1985, Signatures, Forwards and Escorts and why certain rare Royal Typefaces can be found on Brother Typewriters!
Weapon of Choice: “Thunderbird 2” 1968 Montgomery Ward Signature 440T #B8860433 It’s been a bit since I’ve browsed through Muse Technical’s Department store catalog archive, but the other night someone asked about an 80’s-era Penncrest machine on the FB – and that set me to looking at the archive again. What I’ve found is that […]
The Japanese Typewriter Datecode Theory (a work in progress)
There’s a theory I’ve been pondering – a datecode theory that is exceedingly simple and once you think about it, surprisingly obvious and relatively easy to prove now that we have quite a lot of example machine galleries in the TWDB and someone who has devoted his collection and research to the age of Electronic […]
New Halda/Facit Age List numbers on TWDB!
Weapon of Choice: “Starbuck” 1964 Hermes Rocket #60279151974 Facit 1620 #910029Time to make the donuts! er, or update the Halda/Facit Age List, anyway.
Olympia SG’s a year younger than we think? Sheridan suggests so…
Weapon of Choice: “Thunderbird 4” 1968 Montgomery Ward Signature 440T #C8899610
New Age List for Aztec Typewriters!
Weapon of Choice: “Indy”, 1959 Tower Chieftain III #3YT167056 1960 Aztec (Groma) 800 = Groma Combina 1962 Aztec (Erika) 800 = Metal Shell Erika 20 1960-62 Aztec (Erika) 700 = Metal Shell Erika 10 1960-61 Aztec (Rheinmetall) 600 = Rheinmetall KsT 1963-65 Aztec (Erika) 15 = Plastic Shell Erika 15 1963-65 Aztec (Erika) 14 = […]
Thoughts on Typewriter Parts Supplies and Trading
Weapon of Choice: 1946 Royal Quiet De Luxe #A-1218244 Goodies from The Type Space! :D A Quiet De Luxe differs from an Aristocrat mainly by the amount of sound padding panels it has. For some reason, this QDL had lost all of it’s panels, so I’ll replace them with fun red felt. Weapon of Choice: […]
Typewriterdatabase Temporarily down thanks to Enom :P
NEWEST: Whoop! looks like the main “typewriterdatabase.com” domain is resolving again – due to a “short-term fix” implemented by Enom. When they verify that they have a “permanent fix” in place, I’ll switch the site’s config back to use the root domain again. (: ############# UPDATE: Site’s been down for 36 hours now, and I’ve […]
Smith-Corona Electric 5TE Typewriter Serial Numbers Updated!
Weapon of Choice: 1957 Tower Commander #5AT635929 The Previous 5TE Serial List: See: News timeline (mostly by: John Coleman, Peter Weil) https://www.facebook.com/groups/TypewriterCollectors/permalink/10158187046324678/ New York Times, Atlanta Constitution – October 10, 1956 (announcement) October 21-28, 1956 (stores begin offering limited inventory) January 27, 1957 Brazeal Typewriter Co in Springfield, MO (has one at least for display) […]
The Mojibake Waltz…
Weapon of Choice: “Thunderbird 3” 1966 Montgomery Ward Signature 440T #D6216161
Halberg Royalites, TWDB Updates and One Hell of a Coincidence!
Weapon of Choice: 1957 Tower Commander #5AT635929 Get your Coil-Bound Typewriter Repair Bibles While They’re Still Available! Royal page updated! Wed, 12 May 2021 The Royal (Diana) and Royal (Halberg) sections of the Royal serial number age list has been updated with information from the Parts manuals of these models, and dating information has been […]
Excitement and Delight! Fresh Rubber! Musty Books!
Weapon of Choice: “Cadwallader”, 1963 Olympia SM7 #2335640 A Typer’s Dozen: Ted Munk @ The Typewritemosphere AUSTIN TYPEWRITER, INK. Casting Urethane Typewriter Feet: Joe shows off his Goody Package from Bill M. in a recent Typewriter Club Live! Little library of Typewriter Care & Repair. Wait.. are those SM-7 feet in that little baggie??
Virtual Hermans – How to use The Typewriter Database, and random thoughts…
Weapon of Choice: “Richard The Deep Breather”, 1925 Corona 4 #H506286 Weapon of Choice: “Adwoa”, 1961 Swissa Junior #6102535 Yes, I’ve built web-based MMO’s before, even had a couple of SSWCons, and then there was a little something called “Huggles and Ponies”… 11/14/2020 Virtual Hermans – How to use The Typewriter Database Oh, and here […]
New PDF downloads in the Typewriter Database File Library for Typewriter Hunters!
New PDF downloads in the Typewriter Database File Library for Typewriter Hunters! Buncha new NOMDA Blue Books and some Olympia, Underwood and SCM dealer literature. Enjoy! File area is here, after you’ve logged in with a Typewriter Hunter account:
Keeping Busy and Productive
Weapon of Choice: “Joanie” 1964 Hermes 3000. First casts in plastic resin, transparent because I haven’t yet gotten my mica powders in the mail. This resin is actually quite tough, and I think it’ll work perfectly. Some more TRB luv. Can’t tell you how much it warms my cockles to see people getting good use […]
Levers, Nameplates and Feets, Oh, My!
Got my bake-set clay, liquid plastic and silicon mold-making stuff today, so I decided to replicate the feet for the “Silver Bullet” Olympia SM case and build my first molds. I’ve built the masters for my Corona 4 feets, tested for perfect fit, correct height and superior desk grip. I’ll likely be doing even more […]
UJTU: SCM Carriage Levers, Corona Feets, A Gift For a Patron and Scannin’
Weapon of Choice: 1936 Corona Junior Model S. The Carriage Release Levers on 1959-1980’s SCM portables are prone to breakage and getting more so as they age. These, from Bubbles, my own 1960 Galaxie are brittle and developing hairline cracks despite being in quite good shape. They also aren’t white anymore. I pondered how I […]
Typewriter Typeface Font Search By Models made more obvious on TWDB
A couple people have asked me recently if I could add the ability to display typefaces by particular typewriter model, and this confused me because I thought you already could. I built the TWDB to be a Database, IE: you can query it using simple variables to filter results, and these queries are written into […]
New info on Olympia Typewriter Paint and plastic color changes…
That moment when you realize that binder full of useless Olympia parts price lists for 1969 also has an Engineering Bulletin that details the *exact serial number when the paint and plastic on the Olympia models changed*… :D This info is now incorporated into the Olympia Serial Number Page at TWDB. I also fixed a […]
Olympia SM-7 1961-1964, a Correction
Weapon of Choice: “Cadwallader”, 1963 Olympia SM-7 Nick’s post on Olympia SM Series 1948-1964. The TWDB Olympia page. The TWDB Olympia SM-7 by Serial Number page. The TWDB Olympia SM-5 by Serial Number page.
UJTU: The Many Platens and Worlds I’ve Enjoyed Lately
Weapon of Choice: 1957 Tower Commander. The Smith-Corona Floating Shift Typewriter Repair Bible. PDF Typewriter Books on TWDB. Weapon of Choice: “Einstein” 1956 Smith-Corona Silent. What’s in the BOX?? A buncha new service manuals to scan! Weapon of Choice: “Indy” 1959 Tower Chieftain III. Weapon of Choice: “Little Jake” 1933 Monarch. Hey, it’s been awhile […]
Got some new printed typewriter repair manuals ready fer ya!
The Lulu store is back again, which allows me to offer a bit better pricing on printed books and much better shipping rates outside the USA than Bookpatch was able to do, still professionally printed and coil bound to lay flat on your work table. This also allows me to introduce some new books in […]
New TWDB “Mechanic’s Club” Patreon Tier!
Ooh, look! Patreon and Sellfy have set up an API that allows us to offer discounts at the TWDB Sellfy Store (https://sellfy.com/twdb) to TWDB Tier-level Patrons through some arcane technomagic. We’ve set up our first Patreon Tier and we waved the magic wand over it that theoretically should have set up the method by which […]
Brothers Under The Skin: A Defense of 21st Century Chinese Typewriters
Weapon of Choice: 2006 Generation 3000 with Transplant 1981 JP-7 Engine. Oddly, the ribbon cover latches are reversed between the two shell designs. You lift up the back on the JP-7, but lift the front on the G3k. Both shells have 4 screws at the bottom that are removed to take the shell off. the […]
The Brothers 3
Weapon of Choice: 1971 Remington Automatic 612 (Brother JP-4) I’m also working on a package for Joe, and according to the audio letter he sent, I have about 3 months to fill up the opposite side of the tape. Well now, 3 months is enough time to fill up a whole box, I’d think. Since […]
Sears Typewriter Serial Number Page Created!
Weapon of Choice: “Einstein” 1956 Tower Silent Atomic New Sears Serial Number Page at the Typewriter Database! But before we worry about how it all ended, let’s look at where it began. Fall of 1963 – the last “Tower” Electric is offered along with the very first “Sears” electric. The new version is a 12-incher! […]
Tower Typewriter Serial Number Page Updated!
Weapon of Choice: 1957 Tower Commander The New Tower Typewriter Serial Number Page on TWDB Canadian Tower Typewriters: Tantalizing Tidbits Smith-Corona Tabulators in the TWDB Tower Challengers in the TWDB Tower Commanders in the TWDB
TWDB: Milestone nearly reached!
UJTU: TWDB Epsilon Teasers!
Serious Research View (SRV) Typewriter Porn View (TPV) Grid View (GRD) Weapon of Choice: Thunderbird 3, 1966 MW Signature 440T
The Case of the Disappearing Ebay Listings, or how to Wrangle Ebay EPN API Feeds
Weapon of Choice: “Joanie”, 1964 Hermes 3000 The current PHP API Feed display ads. Pretty, but a bit flakey lately. You also need to add some request variables to the Javascript call to Ebay’s servers. Attach the above to your call to toggle the return of the SuperSize image url and to tell Ebay to […]
Smith-Corona Skyriters 2Y, 3Y & 4Y – 1949 to 1962
I noticed the other day that most of the Skyriters in TWDB were mis-dated, probably due to the fact that I had “clarified” the numbers into actual ranges instead of December numbers earlier in the year. I had to re-date and clean up the Skyriter listings so they were correct. Doing this revealed some things […]
I’m bad at incentivizing Patreon Goals, and TWDB Epsilon Ideas :P
John Munroe over in the Facebook ATC group asked how many Patreon pledges would I need to make the mobile version of the TWDB into one where you can log in and do Typewriter Hunter stuff like upload galleries and etc. I replied that it was already happening, specifically that the upcoming TWDB Version Epsilon […]
Hermes 3000 Serial Numbers Updated!
The whole saga of translating the Hermes 3000 Service Manual started actually with a request to update the serial numbers from new info. The service manuals were that info: There it was, Jacques Perrier had uploaded his French H3K service manuals to his museum’s website, and in the front of each was some factory age […]
7 Years, 777 Posts and the Hanx Effect
Ok, here’s something interesting that I’ll call “The HANX EFFECT“, and it happens when there’s a big interview with Tom Hanks talking about his typewriter collection in some nationally aired segment in the news. Sunday there were *two* big interviews with Hanx talking about his new book, but with a heavy emphasis on his typewriter […]
TWDB Chat and the Olympia Typewriter song
Hey, I whipped up a new chat app for TWDB. Any logged-in member can use it (not just Typewriter Hunters). The link is hidden in with all the other links at the top, so I doubt anyone’s found it yet, but it’s right there: Come on by and chat – and hope that someone else […]