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

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.

Heh, it’s funny how the starting paragraph of this article written in 1988 is almost word-for-word similar to articles being written on the subject today: Pittsburgh Press: “Just Your Type – Typewriter Survives America’s romance with high-tech office equipment” Jul 29, 1988

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: In the Museum Victoria Library there is a book by the Office Machines and Equipment Federation called “Typewriter Age Guide“, published in London in December of 1973. The OCLC number is 741742118. The information contained in this document is potentially invaluable to the Insurgency. You are instructed […]

On a side note, while studying the 1962 Schramm Line Book today, I noticed that part of the technical listings for each model of typewriter included the exact width and diameter of the platens offered for the machine. I will be attempting to incorporate this valuable info into the TW-DB wherever I can, as one […]

Had a nice birthday surprise in my inbox this morning – Georg Sommeregger heard my plea for more serial number info for Hermes, and kindly sent me a copy of “H.F.W. Schramm, Liste der Herstellungsdaten deutscher und ausländischer Schreibmaschinen, 11th edition, Hans Burghagen Verlag, Hamburg 1962”, a comprehensive German-language age list, an earlier version of […]

I have a quandry. I have only two sources for Hermes serial number dating that I’m studying for corrections to TWDB. My problem is that they both claim to be lists of Jan 1st numbers for the years represented, yet they seem to be a year off from each other, and neither wholly agrees with […]

Part Two of this series is the “chapter” on Typewriter and adding machine age lists and serial numbers: Coming up next: Part 3: Ribbons, maintenance charge rates, platen and feed roll replacement and rebuilding rates.