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 […]
Updates at The Typewriter Database! Williams, Secor, Emerson, Visigraph and More!
Oh, look at the manufacturer pages by last modified date at TWDB: We’ve been busy this month, and specifically this past week or so, as Tyler Anderson and I took a poke at refining the Williams Typewriter Serial Number Page. Before, it looked like this: And now it looks like this: Nice, eh? I’m spending […]
SSW Universal Surveillance: Night of Explosions and Skypainting
Stephen Colbert’s Typewriter & Alton Brown tours MTE
I dropped by the Mesa Typewriter Exchange yesterday to catch up on what new machines had come in, and to ask Bill Wahl about his encounter with Alton Brown, who had stopped in the shop and poked around awhile before buying a nice early-60’s Olympia SM7. The funny part I found out was that Bill […]
How about a free PDF pattern and tutorial for making your own typewriter dust cover?
Yeah, I thought you guys might dig that. You’re DIY, you like typewriters, why haven’t you clicked this link already? :D
Thrift Score Casio SK-1 and the Urge to Circuit-Bend again…
I managed to get out thriftin’ this weekend and scored an old Casio SK-1 Sampling Keyboard for $7, which is something of a Holy Grail among Circuit Bending enthusiasts for the sheer number of mods that can be done to wildly affect the sounds this little toy keyboard makes. Nice! No battery Acid Rot, clean […]
Life and The Universe Never Stands Still: SSW Cycle 19 Ends with Triad Win!
Throughout my school life, lo so many years ago, I was always shown maps of the Solar System as a series of ellipses orbiting the Sun, which doesn’t move. Of course, even in the 70’s it was understood that the Sun does move – I remember being taught that the Sun, and indeed the whole […]
Admiral Ackbar: First Contact – will the first aliens we meet be amphibians?
The actor who played the voice of Admiral Ackbar died today – he who voiced the famous “IT’S A TRAP!” line in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. That got me thinking a bit about the fact that the Mon Calamari Cruisers shown in Star Wars were not filled with water, despite the Mon Calamari […]
Feelin’ The Bird…
Yeah, with the whole fiasco of the Arizona Primaries and the past week’s incessant news of Trump and Cruz abandoning politics and policy speeches to instead trade insults and allegations about each others wives, the 2016 race can seem pretty relentlessly negative. However, today we got a little reminder about the basic difference in attitude […]
My First Thrifted Wristwatch: 1980 Seiko 5 (6309-5180A)
Teeritz Agenda: How To Buy a Wristwatch, Part 1 – The Dress Watch Teeritz Agenda: How to Buy a Wristwatch, Part 2 – The Dive Watch
Well, maybe America Deserves to be Trumped…
WARNING – ANGRY POLITICAL RANT FOLLOWS: By now you’ve probably read an article or two about the absolute disaster of painfully obvious voter disenfranchisement and outright primary election-rigging that happened a couple of days ago in Arizona. 800,000 voters in Maricopa County where I live were forced to spend all day waiting in lines at […]
Mini-Wedge Redux: Brother EP5 Electronic Typewriter
SSW Universal Surveillance 03-18-3016: The Emperor Has Been Abandoned…
UJTU: The Revolution Marches on
It’s an interesting thing to watch something you have long thought of as a very niche interest, in this case a love and interest in old manual writing machines, burgeon into a cultural phenomena. Today I learned that the Typewriter Revolution has spread to other parts of my state, and an article in the Prescott, […]
Sighted: 1934 Woodstock 5
Not the sort of grab I’d make at that price, but had to snap some sightings photos and get the serial number. 1934 Woodstock 5, with a great old “Robert E DeBarth” dealer sticker, and that guy is still around recovering platens and doing repairs! :D 1934 Woodstock 5 @ The Typewriter Database
Musical Marble Machines: From Ray and Charles Eames to Wintergatan
Constant readers of this blog may remember last year when I posted some short films about Ray and Charles Eames and their fabulous “901” Warehouse workspace. One of the films features a large “Marble Music Machine” built by the Eames which used thousands of marbles gravity-fed to drop into xylophone blocks to constantly play a […]
Election 2016: a Rap, but not a Wrap
Feelin’ the Bern today after Super Saturday:
SSW Universal Surveillance 02-27-3016: Orange Crush falters and falls back as Grey appears…
Feb 23 Drone Kills ############################################### 1 cuadBelle 91,427 Enemy Drones Destroyed 2 Julionics 66,465 Enemy Drones Destroyed 3 Rakkasan 60,958 Enemy Drones Destroyed 4 Salen 51,957 Enemy Drones Destroyed 5 BabylonHoruv 45,509 Enemy Drones Destroyed 6 ThatKat 43,557 Enemy Drones Destroyed 7 grimdel 32,942 Enemy Drones Destroyed 8 aces44 23,454 Enemy Drones Destroyed 9 crashnburn11 […]
SSW Universal Surveillance 02-25-3016: Orange Crush absorbs the hits
Typewriterdatabase hits 5000 Galleries today!
The TWDB hit its 5000th Typewriter Gallery today. Congrats, Typewriter Hunters!
PaleoComputing: 1981 Osborne 1 CP/M Portable Computer
I don’t really intentionally collect old computers, I really don’t. However, when Bill Wahl called me up and said “Someone left an old computer here because they didn’t want to throw it away, and I thought you might want it. It says Osborne 1 on the side. Come and get it out of here.” Well, […]
UJTU: Homes designed by Ettore Sottsass, a Typosphere Blog goes away, and a taste of Politics…
I saw this article in my newsfeed today, and it surprised me to find that Italian typewriter designer Ettore Sottsass had designed houses too, with over 20 homes in his portfolio. I figured this would be an article that Ton Sison would dig, so I went to his blog (i dream lo-tech) to post it […]