In which IT’S HERE!

Week before last I was surfing Amazon and the reviews for the modern typewriter are pretty terrible. They’re made of cheap parts because to make them of good stuff would make them cost far too much, and nearly every model has a review that says “This is cheap shit, I hate it, just buy a vintage one because they’re much higher quality.”

So I emailed my family to ask if anybody had an old typewriter lying around, and no one did (save an aunt who had an electric that smoked when she plugged it in), so I found one on eBay and I bid on it.

And won.

It seems that old typewriters go for $30 to $800 dollars, and there doesn’t appear to be any fucking rhyme or reason—some are as-is, some are fully checked over by pros and certified working, some are rare, some are common, but regardless of status, somebody online is gonna offer you something for $675 that goes for $55 elsewhere. I assume greed and stupidity, since that’s what drives eBay pricing in general, I think.

Anyway, this thing was listed by a Goodwill in California, and the photos were weird (as in not taken by a typewriter guy) and the description was non-existent. I got it for $40 including shipping, so even if it was a paperweight I could still get that back just by selling the keys and platen.

It arrived today and it’s heavy as hell; I routinely carry 20 pound wheels of cheese around, and this thing is much heavier than that, so maybe 30, 35 pounds? I can’t be bothered to go weigh it on the bathroom scale, but it’s a lot for something you put on your desk.

It’s quite dirty and dusty, is missing a 4 key, and needs some work, but I think I’ll be able to use it after some TLC. Main issue is that I’ve only briefly gotten the keys to hit the platen. There’s some margin setting or other I haven’t figured out yet that’s preventing it from actually typing except during that brief period before I kept fucking with more settings, and there’s also something messed up about the key arms for 8 and J, but I bet that can be fixed with some judicious needle nosed pliering.

Oh, and it’s short one proprietary ribbon spool. Replacements, according to what I’ve seen so far, run about $35 each. OF COURSE. (But once you have two proprietary spools you can wind on any old ribbon you want, forever.)

Anyway, here’s the manual:

So pretty soon I’ll have a working typewriter, for some reason I can’t defend. I mean, I don’t need a typewriter, because I have a computer and a printer, and I’ll probably only use the thing for the occasional envelope I can’t be bothered to slot into the printer or recipe card I don’t want to hand-write, and it’s big and weighs a ton and would be an absolute bitch to get rid of again. It’ll be fun to clean and tune and get working again, as a project, but I already have several hobbies I’m just not doing…

Anyway, I’m going to go brush and vacuum it out and get to cleaning it a little before I go back to bed.