The cool typewriter font on this page courtesy of Richard Polt, and reproduces that of his Remington Noiseless portable.
Let me say, before you begin to read this page, that I am NOT a Serious Typewriter Collector! Many of those folks know everything there is to know about typewriters, and own hundreds. I'm not one of those...
Why in the world would anyone even think about typewriters these days? And why portables? I dunno; it's just one of those things that people latch onto. Again, I am not a serious collector of typewriters; not me, I just like 'em.
I have a long background with portable typewriters; read on and see:
These days, there are all kinds of modern electronic replacements for typewriters. I even used to carry one of them on occasion, an AlphaSmart Pro, about 15 years old now, essentially a laptop-sized portable word processor.(see my Formerly HiTech Toys page) Thing is, though, I can write with it, but I can't produce written stuff in the field; it must be taken back home, connected to the PC, and my writings imported into Wordpad, and printed from there. It's handy for taking notes and stuff, but if I have to produce hard copy "in the field", I fall back to Old Reliable, my portable manual typewriter!
I like typewriters. I like the mechanical competence of them, and in their day, they were the were the ultimate hi-tech machine, allowing an actual printed page to be sent to another person or entity. Before them, all letters, even official documents, were hand written, and subject to all the misunderstanding and incorrect interpretation that handwriting brings. An office just seemed more productive with typewriters clacking away. To most of us, a brand-new typewriter is an odd idea, but computer-laden industrialized countries are not the rule - typewriters still sell by the millions in the third world, including manuals; not everyone has electricity. Guatemala City, and thousands more localities in the third world, still have "public writers", who set up on the streets with manual typewriters, and eke out a living typing up forms and official documents for people. Even here in the U.S. new typewriters are readily available, including manuals - Olympia has a couple of excellent manual portables, and Olivetti has recently introduced a new portable model. Even IBM still sells typewriters! I prefer manual typewriters as opposed to electrics, because they seem easier on my fingers. It is hard to explain, but banging away at an electric typewriter or computer keyboard seems to make my fingers hurt after a while, I think because of the sudden stop when the keys hit the end of their travel; a manual typewriter involves moving the actual mechanism, and though the keys are harder to push, the stop at the end doesn't seem so abrupt, so it seems to be less shock to my finger joints. Doesn't seem logical, but there it is.
I have always had troubles with my hands, with motor control and bad joints, and my handwriting has always been simply awful. I gave up completely on cursive writing in the 5th grade, and developed a method of printing in all caps that was still lousy, but was at least readable. It served me well until I entered junior high school - the third day of my 7th grade class, (this was in 1965) I had submitted a one-page writing of some kind, and the teacher handed it back to me with a complaint about my printing. I explained my situation and showed her my hands, and she still encouraged me to do it in cursive. I did, and turned it in. She looked it over, and said something I remember to this day: "Honey, I can read reading, but I can't read writing when it's written rotten. Type it."
I took the thing home that night, and undertook to type it, using the old Underwood manual typewriter that my parents had around the house since forever. Dad gave me a five minute crash course on the basics, and I went at it. It was very slow going, and took me a couple of hours to bang out my paper, but when I finished, I looked it over and there was a revelation - I can write legibly with this thing! I clattered away at the old Underwood (which was very old and didn't work very well) for a while, and tired of it quickly, revelation or no.
One
bright Saturday morning, I gathered up my paper route savings, tooled
down to K-Mart on my motorscooter, and came home with this. This is a
KMart "100" manual portable typewriter, circa 1969. It is
about the size of a small modern notebook computer, only thicker.
(that is a 12 inch ruler in front of it) It was very cool - clamshell
cover that snaps on for carrying around, and since it was brand
spanking new, typed like crazy compared to the old Underwood. It
didn't have all the bells and whistles (no tab key, for instance) but
it was new and mine. I found out later that this is a Wedgefield 100,
made in Japan by Brother, and branded for K-Mart. There are Serious
Collectors in the typewriter game, some of whom consider this a "toy"
typewriter; I can only say that if this is a toy, it's a damned
durable toy - this thing is bulletproof! I hauled this thing
around all over the place for 30 years, until the late 1990s, and
sometimes still do, and it still clacks along happily. Through the
years, it has just had a couple of clean-and-lubings when it
stiffened up, and it has only required one part, a new platen roller
because the original dried out and got hard over the years, and a
hard platen is tough on the type characters. I still use it
occasionally to write letters, (yes, though I do a lot of email, I
still write letters) to make cassette labels, and to address
envelopes; the latter two because my computer printers still can't
seem to figure this out. I have been through a forest worth of typing
paper, miles of ribbon, and probably a gallon of Liquid Paper with
this thing. I still haul it around occasionally, if I anticipate
doing any writing that needs hard copy. It gets all kinds of
reactions; some people stare at it like they don't know what it is
(some probably don't) and some in my age range get all nostalgic, and
want to type on it! There is something special, these days, about receiving an actual, typed letter; paper, actual typing as opposed to laser printing, in an envelope with a stamp on it. It's cool, and I have gotten long-distance calls thanking me for taking the time to do it.
I have a few other typewriters, including electrics, but I am not a Serious Collector. There are those folks out there, with collections of hundreds of typewriters, and typing "antique typewriter" into Google will find them for you.
There is little difference between typing with this and a computer, but there are differences. A typewriter makes you more thoughtful since there is no cutting and pasting sentences around on the page; I think that the typewriter makes me think in what I call "paragraph mode", a full idea at a time. On the keyboard, you must think in a different way about the Shift key - on a typewriter, the Shift Lock key locks everything - numbers, punctuation, the whole works. On a computer keyboard, only the letters are locked, so with the Caps Lock on with my computer, I can type 2004 on the top row, and it comes back 2004. A typewriter is mechanical, so the Shift Lock key locks everything - 2004 comes back @))$
I have been using both for so long that I switch back and forth automatically, but it gives some folks trouble. There are also some keys missing on the typewriter keyboard, since they did not exist until computers, among them \ ~ | { and }.
Here are some of my other "writing machines" -
This
is a Royal "Safari", circa 1969. Still a portable by my
standards, it still has a carrying case; I call it a "luggable".
This was a bid to have a better quality machine, but it hasn't really
worked out that way; it produces crisper-looking type on the page,
but it has been troublesome over the years, requiring a few repairs.
You never know...
A
Brother electric portable, circa 1972, bought to relieve the drudgery
of the manual typewriter, though it didn't work out that way, as
explained above. This one has done a world of typing, though running
through three drive belts over the years; the electrics are more
complicated... Though fairly heavy, it is still a portable,
again with a clamshell cover. (I prefer portables) Another
discount-store machine, but a good one.
A
Royal portable, circa 1939. I was hooked up with this one by a
lady in my motorscooter club, who was sharp-eyed and spotted it in a
thrift store. Good shape, but a worn escapement bar. I am
working on that. Cool.
This
one I actively hunted for, and finally scored it on eBay. This
is a circa 1951 Smith-Corona Skyriter, introduced in 1950, originally
meant to be taken aboard an airliner, so some work could be turned
out while in flight. It was advertised to able to fit, in it's case,
under the seat of an airliner of the day. I wonder what kind of
trouble I could get into trying to get this on a plane nowadays! It
is actually a redesign of an earlier “flat” portable called the
Zepher, named after the first streamliner train in the USA, so it
reflected the move from trains to airplanes as the preferred business
travel. Works well, and is cool.
This
is not a portable, but interesting nonetheless. This is an
Underwood 5 manual desk typewriter, circa 1965, a standard in
government offices, newsrooms, etc until the mid 1970s, when they
were replaced by IBM selectrics and the ilk. Still works just
fine.Constantly under construction - check back.