Category: From the Desk of Reverend Munk
Typecasts from the desk of the Right Reverend Theodore Munk
Stapler of the Week: Swingline Speed Stapler 3 (1940’s?)
Brother Serial Numbers Unified for all models?
So, I paged through the bulk of the Brother documentation, and it looks like I have pretty good coverage of Brother models between the late 70’s to the early 90’s, very heavy on the 80’s. Good news for Brother Electric appreciators. This documentation extends up to the WP series word processor line and at least […]
A Brotherly Bonanza
Interesting, eh? I was at MTE today poking around at stacks of old service manuals (a large leather-bound Victor Calculator Service Manual binder caught my attention, but it turned out to be filled with the service manual for a Smith-Corona Electric), and Bill mentioned that he had 2 boxes of old Brother service manuals that […]
Paper Calculators: The Lightning Calculator, 1932 and the Color Helm, 1940
I loves me some paper calculators, yessir. My first one I remember was a simple slider that did multiplication and came out of a box of cereal in 1970-something. The idea of a computer constructed out of paper fascinated me immediately, and I wore that cereal box calculator to shreds as a kid. Later in […]
Pinhole Camera Day: Better Late Than Never!
The Process
I needed to run a test film roll through the Canonet 28 on Saturday to test for light leaks and make sure the exposure was working right, and while I was at it, might as well shoot some 3D squigglies with the Nishika N8000 so I’d have 2 rolls to develop. That meant rolling up […]
1970’s Canon Canonet 28 Rangefinder in the $2 Camera Bin…
I did all the testing I could without a battery in the store, and knew it needed new light seals. Everything else worked fine in it’s manual modes. When I got it home, though, a fresh battery wouldn’t kick on the light meter or make the camera work in it’s primary “auto” modes. I did […]
Google indexing our typecasts as text? It could happen real soon.
And now here’s the transcribed text of this typecast: Ok, so the question occasionally comes up about the GOOGLE indexing our typecasts as text, when they are typewritten and scanned as inages. For the most part, typecasters are split between two groups in attitude regarding whether or not we actually want Google OCR-ing our posts: […]
Passing Up The SM-3 for a Nishika N8000 Makes the Gnome Dance!
Well, ok, do you guys remember this post a couple of months ago, where I passed up an overpriced Nishika 3D camera in the glass case and was rewarded with a cheap Royal Model O typewriter in the electronics aisle? Well, the exact reverse happened to me at that same Goodwill today: I passed up […]
Pencast: 1920’s Conklin Endura, My Great-Grandfather’s Fountain Pen
Happy Easter, Typosphere!
My friend Erin has baby chickens and apparently they like the little blue Corsair I gave her the other month. It seemed appropriate to share this on Easter. (:
A Stats and Traffic post
This is going to be one of those stats and traffic posts, so if you don’t like graphs and speculation, look away now. I confess to not having bothered looking at my stats for several months until Scott K posted a very interesting conversation not too long ago about his stats and how he analyzed […]
Fun with the Anscoflex II Pseudo-TLR
The Anscoflex II seems to be a pretty popular “toy” TLR, due to the huge viewfinder and spiffy design. Lots of reviews and posts in photo blogs: http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Ansco_Anscoflex https://sites.google.com/site/contraptionsinphoto/ansco-anscoflex-ii http://danielleruth.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/anscoflex-ii/ http://westfordcomp.com/foundfilm/anscoflex/ http://junkstorecameras.com/anscoflex.htm http://connealy.blogspot.com/2012/08/anscoflex-ii.html http://mwpfilm.blogspot.com/2011/03/anscoflex-ii.html http://phil-are-go.blogspot.com/2010/02/anscoflex-camera-hideously-beautiful.html http://shootfilmridesteel.com/?p=133 http://www.jollinger.com/photo/cam-coll/cameras/tlrs/23601_Anscoflex2.html http://malcolmchalmersphotography.weebly.com/2/post/2014/01/anscoflex-built-to-last.html http://tazmpictures.com/site/?p=2468 These pages review the Anscoflex II and mentions an interesting technique where you shoot pictures with […]
Oh yeah, and I Updated the Look of the Blog too..
Adventures of the Typospigeon: Part 1
A-well-a, everybody’s heard about the bird. Bird, bird, bird, b-bird’s the word.
The Typospigeon’s first stop
The Ballad of the Second $2 Garmin GPS
Fun links for infos: The Garmin Nuvi 1450 LMT at Garmin.com Nuvi 1450 Manual GPS Insight, a fleet tracking service Nick Beland’s post showing off his typewriter artwork rubber stamps
Fun with Atomic-Age Electro 35
New Print-Friendliness at the Typewriter Database, plus recent finds.
Good Bones – 1948 Underwood Champion
Collexion – What is it, and should we become early adopters?
Some of you may have heard about Collexion, a new collectors website that appears to have a fairly well-financed venture into being the “Facebook” for collectors. The CEO of the company is a typewriter collector and they’re making a pretty big push to interest the typewriter collecting community in becoming early adopters of their platform […]
TW-DB.com alive or dead?
I caught a conversation on the Yahoo Portable Typewriter forum where a few members noted that the old Typewriter Database site appears to have gone down a couple of days ago. It prompted me to do a little digging to find out what I could about the status of the site, and I’m copying my […]
UJTU: Parker Pen, Marantz PMD and Johnny Depp Be Damned, I should be the next Kolchak!
From the $3.99 Bag-O-Fountain Pens: 1960’s Platignum “Silverline”
Other stuff I photographed today, which is why my good camera is at the Press Room right now. :P
Thrift store Gods provide inky goodness, and the Ghosts of The Past.
Here’s the links: http://www.pnas.org/content/95/26/15861.full http://www.google.com/patents/US3951134
No tear gas cannister or throwing knives, but…
I’ve been on the lookout for a nice attache case with a blotter/writing desk section built in for awhile, they’re somewhat rarer in the thrifts than I expected them to be – but persistence pays: The bottom part has an expandable accordion section, so while a Hermes Rocket/Empire Aristocrat will fit when it’s set at […]
Found Film: Murder, through the Eye of The Owl
I’ve been picking up cheap $2 35mm point-n-shoot cameras at the thrifts lately, but only ones that already have film loaded in them. Most only have a few frames shot – those I will generally re-roll and re-shoot, double-exposing those few frames in a dice roll to see if I can get something interesting to […]
Jackalopes, Yashica Electro 35 G and Ink Sacs & Shellac
I’ve been on the lookout for a couple of specific Rangefinder cameras lately: specifically an Olympus PEN half-frame 35mm (NotAgain has one, it’s a fantastically tiny and handy), and a Yashica Electro 35 rangefinder. Today I found one for lunch money in practically factory-new condition at Goodwill. I about fell over when I saw it […]
Pencast 2: New feature at the Typewriter Database
Pencast: 1950’s Esterbrook J “Double Jewel” Fountain Pen
http://www.esterbrook.net/j3.shtml http://www.richardspens.com/ref/repair/sac_replacement.htm http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/84932-how-to-clean-a-fountain-pen-fully/
ITAM is shaping up to be Royally Awesome!
Buddy-L Easy-Writer 300
note the forward-leaning exclamation mark not only prints that way, but is painted on the keytop that way. weird. Includes a “1” since there is no lower-case “l”. See this thing @ the Typewriter Database.
A frenzy…
The News from the North
This typecast was written Tuesday, and since then I’ve been inundated with raw scans and a spreadsheet put together by TypesHalfSpaces. A vertitable treasure trove of information on the RaRo type foundry, which I have not had time yet to process. However, look for a big reveal on Georg Sommeregger’s blog soonish regarding the RaRo […]