The homebound summer of 2020 made me antsy for some excitement beyond my usual yarn and fabric adventures. I sewed face masks, knitted a couple lampshades, learned some guitar tunes, and filled my old calligraphy pens to journalize in pretty words. Occasionally I'd look up to the photo of my grandmother holding me as a toddler, reading me a bedtime story. I have fond memories of her office where she wrote everything on typewriters until she sold her IBM Selectric when her vision went bad and had to switch to computers with large fonts. Eventually something clicked and I could almost hear her shouting at me from heaven, "Get a typewriter already, Mei!"
I first went to a local office store that had a typewriter department. Sadly I learned that area was long gone after the patriarch died several years ago and took all the knowledge with him while his children sold the typewriters and successfully expanded the electronic equipment sales. An internet search resulted in absolutely no typewriter anything in Arkansas. Amazon and Walmart had a few new models but at surprisingly high prices for what looked like clunky plastic machines. I'd seen typewriters in vintage shops and flea markets but never in nice enough condition for a novice to instantly start typing.
Not sure exactly where to begin my hunt, I turned to the trusted Goodwill where I've found many of my beloved vintage sewing machines at bargain prices. With superb quality at lower costs, department store models like Sears and Montgomery Ward can't be beat and so it made sense the same would apply to typewriters. I battled with a few other auctioneers over the shiny photos and won both for about $60 each. While waiting the two weeks for them to arrive, I scoured the internet for more information and quickly found a wonderful typewriter collector community through blogs, YouTube, and Facebook. Now I know both my "new" typewriters are made by Brother of Japan, the same company that made four of my favorite sewing machines.
Making typewriter friends has been just as enjoyable as finding and using the machines themselves. Typewriter people tend to be more intelligent, intellectual, and articulate than average, most likely because people who love typewriters enjoy both reading and writing. The Typosphere community consists of collectors, technicians, aficionados, artists, writers, and more who all share one philosophy: Typewriters are important!
It's hard to believe that for the past 25 years I used zero typewriters as computers became all the rage. After I donated my one and only in 1997, the simple delight of instantly printing to paper slowly became a fading memory. It took a pandemic to wake me up from years of technology overload, and I've pleasantly rediscovered the peaceful clickity-clack of my thoughts and feelings feeding into a machine that doesn't tell me how to think and spell.
Two months in, my collection grew to 18 functional typewriters, eight of which are made by Brother. They've become my accidental favorites, because they're so common they're fairly inexpensive and so sturdy they've held up nicely over the years. I love my first Ol' Blue so much I ended up getting three more fraternal twins. They were made in 1967 (Script), 1969 (Elite), 1970 (Script), and 1971 (Pica). My JP-1 ultra-portables were made in 1979, 1984, 1985, and my groovy aqua plastic one is from 1976, all Pica. With a little tweaking and cleaning they almost perform like a brand-new typewriters.
The history of typewriters is just as fascinating as the machines themselves. They're a huge part of the revolution into the modern world, yet the the number of folks who actually use and repair them have dwindled since the computer and internet era began. However those numbers have been slowly increasing as people are shifting towards using less technology in their personal lives. The high-quality typewriters of yesteryear are no longer produced and therefore in limited supply, so I snagged several to insure my lifetime supply just in case they all get snatched up.
On this blog I plan to review every single one of my typewriters in chronological order of acquisition, post various typewritten samples of work, and share interesting relevant information. This will be a constant work-in-progress and labor-of-love, but eventually I'll have a helpful and enjoyable blog to share with all the other typewriter aficionados as well as hopefully convince the everybody else to hunt for and save all the old typewriters.
