To Type, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth...

This article in the Beaver County PA Times announces a Type-In at Cafe Kolache on Feb 23rd, and as far as I can tell, the promoter, a Beaver County author and typewriter collector Valentine J. Brkich, is not a Typospherian. (although he should be) This could be the first “Type-In” held by a non-Typospherian, and […]

This is the last 7 pictures on my phone:

  The Scandalous Valentine Ettore Sottsass Wanted to Give You in All Capital Letters   Surprisingly well-informed, but again neglects to mention Sottass’s lack of involvement with the final design.

On a personal note, I love this manual because it’s a really fine example of old-school spot color design and printing, which was far cheaper to do back in 1961 than full-color process printing. Nowadays it’s far cheaper to do 4-color than this sort of exacting color knockouts and fill halftones, and you just never […]

This article in the Sioux City Journal about a retiring typewriter repairman has an interesting line in it: The brothers also cleaned and bagged typewriters for the Army and Navy and then transported them to Chicago. The typewriters were sealed up and put in an unusual place. “I asked them, what they do with them […]

This is for Dwayne at VTO, who just picked up a sweet Executive, and would probably like to know how to work it. From the archives of Bill Wahl.

The Typewriter Database Manufacturers and Marques page…  

*Sigh*, I’m getting consistently sniped anytime I bid on things on eBay. This time I’m extra-sad because the item that got sniped from me at the last second now was this: Ames General Catalog No. 9, which is very likely the same or a newer edition of source #11 for the Typewriter Database. It’s a […]

I worked quite a bit on the codebase of typewriterdatabase.com this weekend, building out the member’s Virtual Typewriter Collection Gallery stuff – it’s not quite ready to be rolled out for members to start uploading their collections, but it soon will be – maybe a week or two if I get some free time. If […]

I don’t think I ever got around to posting this after it aired last year, but here’s a local news story on the Third Phoenix Type-In at the Luxe:

Lo, these many years ago when I was a much younger and angrier soul, I had a 4-track tape recorder and a room full of guitars, amps, cheap microphones, keyboards and whatnot, and a burning desire to change the world through music. I called myself Ted Worthless and released about a half-dozen albums home-recorded on […]

So, I was poking around on local Craigslist this morning, and although I don’t even remotely have an interest in collecting old adding machines, I will sometimes take a peek. Adding machines, and to a certain extent, Spirit Duplicators are like the ugly cousins of typewriters. Originally, the three were usually sold at the same […]

Well, ok, the eBay auction includes 200 or so other signed early works and ephemera, but the piece de resistance is the beat-up old Super-Speed that Spillane used to write his early stuff. This is an auction that only Steve Soboroff could love, I guess, and I suspect that price tag might make even that […]

First Aid for Typewriters is an article in the May 1941 issue of Popular Science which gives useful tips on keeping your typer in top shape. For tips on how an EXPERT cleans a typewriter, we need to jump to March of 1949: here. And heck, while I’m linking to fun typewriter stuff, here’s an […]

The Hermes page has been completely overhauled and updated: http://typewriterdatabase.com/hermes.41.typewriter-serial-number-database Patria/Swissa page updated with some numbers for Swissa: http://typewriterdatabase.com/patriaswiss.44.typewriter-serial-number-database The Hermes, Swissa, Adler and Royal pages have all been updated to include the factory original platen diameters for various models. This should be helpful if you need to get your platen re-covered. (:

ahh yes, I went back to Ace Hardware and got some more of those rubber bushings in a slightly larger size, which work perfectly as replacement feet for the gull-wing cover Hermes Rockets.