presents
Some more Web sites that may be of interest
to fans of old typewriters...
Organizations and Periodicals
Collecting and Restoring Typewriters
Typewriter Collectors
Personal sites created by collectors, alphabetized by collector's
(italicized) name.
- Nick Beland's Typewriter Pages:
there's lots to explore in this site from a teenage typist.
- Arnold Betzwieser shows us his collection,
including
many German machines, with careful historical and technical notes. In
German.
- Mike Campbell's
Typewriter Page: this collector joins the Web with some useful tips
on packing typewriters, as well as other nice features.
- Swiss collector Philippe
Campiche shares his collection with us. In French.
- Anthony Casillo's Antique
Typewriter
Collecting:
the world of old writing machines as seen by a
typewriter repairman and collector extraordinaire.
- Brazilian typewriter collector Fernando Costa
has created an excellent site where you can see
some
of his rare machines. In Portuguese.
- Vintage
and Antique Typewriters by Damon.
- Davis Typewriter
Works:
Will and Dave Davis' blog about their typewriter discoveries.
- Chuck Dilts
& Rich Cincotta's
Typewriter Homepage: a nice site from two enthusiastic typewriter
fans.
- Aurelio
Dragonetti
shows off his collection in this web page. In Italian.
- Plustype is a
German/English site
created by Markus Elster, showcasing the extensive collection
of the late Tilman Elster.
- Don Feldman shows us
his typewriters at Typewriter
Fever.
- German collector Lothar
K. Friedrich displays his
machines.
- Greg Fudacz presents The Antikey Chop Typewriter
Collection.
- Juan
Ramón Gracia of Spain displays his collection at Typewriter House
Collector.
- Eduardo Guillem
shows us his beautiful collection at Prehistoria
de la
Informática. In Spanish.
- Antique
Typewriters
by Martin Howard: a lovely site showcasing the typewriters of
this
Canadian
collector. Read an article Martin wrote for the Journal of Antiques and Collectibles.
- The
S.L. Johnson Typewriter Page: this collector lists the
various
writing machines and related items that he's
accumulated, plus has special tributes to Corona and Oliver. Very
nicely designed.
- Jan Kaluza of Tychy, Poland, presents his own online typewriter
museum. In Polish.
- Bryan Kruk has created Typewriters
101.
- William Lawson
presents his collection at Typecove.
- André Loir shows us the machines he
has restored and is restoring. In French.
- Antonio Luce runs a
blog based on
his knowledge and collection at scrivevo.blogspot.com.
- Teacher Mark D. Martin presents fine photos
and
lots of information about his collection, mostly consisting of
mid-century portables.
- Adolf Mayer
collects and restores typewriters; he
shows us photos of a
few
of his machines. In German.
- Morton
Typewriter Collection: a list and photos of the machines belonging
to young collector Jett Morton, and links to articles about
him.
- Theodore Munk's
collection is small but beautifully documented.
- Swedish
Typewriter Page: an attractive site created by Christofer Nöring,
with beautiful pictures spanning a century of
writing
machines. In Swedish, with English summaries.
- Raivo Oravas shows us his beautiful
mid-century portables. In Estonian.
- Landbee
Collection: a lovely set of typewriters assembled by the late
British
collector Les Owen.
- John Payton's
site shows off his typewriters as well as his Model A Ford.
- Ettore Poccetti's
site features large photos of machines in his collection in Italy.
- Chestnut
Ridge Typewriter Museum: a handsome set of photos of
unusual items from the collection of Herman Price.
- German collector
Hartmut Quast's site offers some nice pictures of his
collection.
- Martin Rice presents the Johnstown
Type Writer Conservatory, with articles on his collection and notes
on "type writer" history.
- Lady
Typewriter:
Englishwoman Janet Riding's perspective on typewriter
collecting
includes photos of her collection and a great deal of information.
- De
Schrijfmachinist (the writing machinist) is a mysterious collector
who shows us his or her typewriters here (in Dutch).
- Machines
of Loving Grace: W.A. Seaver shows off and discusses his
collection, featuring
many midcentury portables as well as a variety of other machines.
- John E. Simmons
shares his collection with us and offers downloadable user's
manuals
and repair manuals in PDF format.
- Swiss collector Georg Sommeregger's typewriters.ch not
only shows us his own collection, but presents interesting material
from Swiss typewriter history, a blog, and a free font, among other
things. Primarily in German, with some English. He also blogs.
- typewriter.be:
a big and beautiful site created by Belgians Wim Van Rompuy and
Guy
Pérard.
Old Typewriters for Sale
- eBay
(US)
has thousands of typewriters for sale on any given day.
- So does German
eBay.
- Antikma: a
German auction house specializing in interesting typewriters.
- Auction
Team Breker:
this German auction house is the largest in the world specializing in
mechanical and technical items,
including typewriters. In English.
- Blue Moon
Camera in Portland, Oregon, sells refurbished, warranted
typewriters at affordable prices. They will ship machines to other
locations.
- Classic
Typewriter Classifieds: for sale and wanted ads (post one for
free). Maintained by Tony Casillo.
- Etsy
offers many typewriters, particularly midcentury portables.
- Galerie
Alte Technik:
a German dealer in antique typewriters, calculators, and other
interesting
old machines.
- Kasbah Moderne sells
refurbished,
repainted, and even gold-plated typewriters in New York City.
- Mr.
Typewriter, AKA Dan Puls of St. Louis, has a warehouse full of
reconditioned typewriters.
- Mytypewriter.com:
a source for beautiful and professionally serviced classics, both
portable and desktop sized.
Typewriter History
- Antike
Schreibmaschinen: a site in German by Jochen Besmer that
explains all the essentials of old typewriters.
- Antique Typewriters
by Will Davis: a rapidly growing site with plenty of interesting
information about pre-1940 machines.
- The web site of the Associazione Italiana
Collezionisti Macchine per Ufficio d'Epoca includes a virtual
museum of Olivetti typewriters and calculators named in honor of the
late
founder of the association, Glauco Pegorini.
- Business
Machines: 1857-1912: some
interesting documents from Harper's Weekly.
- Chinese typewriters are under investigation by Stanford
history professor Thomas Mullaney. Read about his research here, here, and here.
- Corona
Tribute by S. L. Johnson
- Early Office
Museum: a handsome site created by an antique dealer, including
lots of information and pictures
about typewriters and other antique office equipment.
- Eclectisaurus
Typewriter Museum: an attractive site by a dealer who sells modern
portables on eBay. Includes a list of repair shops.
- The European
Typewriter Project: a growing collection of information on and
images of European typewriters, many of which cannot be seen elsewhere
on the Net. Machines from the Tilman Elster and Thomas Fuertig
collections, Web site by Will Davis. In English.
- In
Praise of the Typewriter: A great gallery of photos from LIFE
magazine.
- International
Rasmus
Malling-Hansen Society: an excellent site maintained by an
organization dedicated to the Danish genius who invented the world's
first commercially sold typewriter
(the Writing Ball) and the fastest writing machine ever (the Takygraf).
- Mark
Twain and the typewriter: What was the connection? Well, this is an
interesting
Web page, but you won't find the true story here--
only the aged Twain's recollection of
what happened. Twain probably submitted a typescript of Life on the
Mississippi (not Tom Sawyer). The first
author known to have submitted typewritten
manuscripts is not Twain, but Fanny Kemble, actress and writer.
- The Museum of
the American Printing House for the Blind has an interesting
collection of old braille writers on its web site.
- Music Typewriters: an interesting page by Rosendo
Reyna at the web site of the International Music
Engraving Company.
- Scott Lindstrom presents some fascinating literature about the
ultra-rare Nickerson
Automatic Typewriter.
- Oliver
Tribute by S. L. Johnson
- Archivio Storico
Olivetti: a source for information about the famous Italian
company. In Italian and English.
- This extensive Polish site includes
some pages in English and provides glimpses of little-known
Polish writing machines.
- Portable
Typewriters, by Richard Milton: "This site is devoted to the early
history of the portable typewriter, from around 1890 to 1930,
illustrated by antique typewriters from my collection."
- The
Quest
for a Faster Way to Write: a fascinating history of Japanese
typewriters, including video of a Japanese typewriter in use.
- The Remington
factory in Ilion, New York: a collection of vintage postcards.
- Secrets of the
Oliver:
a series of eye-opening videos by Marty Rice.
- Siamese
Smith Premier: an interesting exploration of Smith Premiers and
other antique typewriters in Thailand, by Thai collector
Pluethipol Prachumphol.
- Smith-Corona
Virtual
Typewriter Museum - the history of Smith-Corona products.
- The
Truth of
QWERTY: a blog by Koichi Yasuoka that investigates the Sholes &
Glidden in impressive detail.
- The
Typewriter
Database:
a growing list of serial numbers for a number of makes. A
very convenient resource.
- Typewriter
Illustrations, by Jay Respler: pictures of several makes, and some
corrections to
typewriter history books.
- Typewriter
Ribbon Tins: Packaging Imagination: a great video introduction to
these charming and collectible typewriter accessories.
- Typewriters by Will
Davis: Will is known for digging up intriguing facts about
mid-20th-century portables that most collectors don't know
about, but he has plenty of information about older machines too.
- Typewriters from
Saxony are discussed on this site by Reinhold Schubert (in German).
- Typewriters in Tompkins: a little about typewriter
history and its connections to Tomkins County, New York.
- The User-Friendly Typewriter: a thorough and
interesting article by Martin Campbell-Kelly in The Rutherford
Journal explores user-oriented design in the age of the mechanical
writing machine.
- Virtual
Typewriter
Museum: a great site from top Dutch collector Paul Robert,
collaborating with other enthusiasts around the world. This
online museum features pictures of machines, history, hundreds of
facts, and even typewriter erotica.
- World
Typewriter and Keyboard Museum: a small online display illustrating
some non-Roman typewriter keyboards.
- Yesterday's
Office: this publication, part of Repair, Service, and
Remarketing News,
features interesting articles about old office machines,
including typewriters.
Museums
- Collezioni
Pedrali (Palazzolo Sull'Oglio, Italy)
- Peter
Mitterhofer Typewriter Museum: an excellent museum in
Partschins, Italy, hometown of rustic typewriter inventor Mitterhofer. (No, he wasn't really the
first.)
Museo della Scrittura Meccanica
(Bra, Italy)- Museu de la
Técnica de l'Empordà (Figueres, Spain)
- Museum of the
American Printing House for the Blind
- Museum of
Business History and Technology
- Museum of Typewriters and Calculators at the Finnish
Business College: an impressive collection presented in a slick
website.
- Museu Lorene:
A
collection of typewriters and calculators in São Paulo. In
Portuguese.
- QWERTZUIOPÜ:
this museum named after the German keyboard arrangement features the
collection of Rudolf and Sieglinde Doose. In Kerpen-Sindorf, near
Cologne, Germany.
- The
Safir
Museum in Iran has a lovely collection of typewriters that you can
glimpse on their web site, even if you don't read Farsi. "The Safir
Museum is a private museum containing the collection of Farshad
Kamalkhani who collected it during 10 years and finally it opened at
summer of 2008 in Tehran. Mr Kamalkhani was interested in collecting
and maintaining these worthy machines after 50 years working in
the family business and 20 years private experience on this subject.
The Safir Museum is located in Safir Shop, the company's main place.
The site is not yet completed and we are in the process of improving it
with a new design and full information about the collection in English
and Persian."
- Schreibmaschinenmuseum
Wattens (Wattens, Austria)
- For more places to see old typewriters, check out
the Directory of Publicly
Displayed
Early Typewriters on this site.
Manual Typewriters for the 21st Century
The last remnants of the typewriter industry ended in the US in the
'90s, but typewriters, including manual ones, are still made in a few
places around the world. Until 2010, they were made in India by Godrej
& Boyce and FAL. Most of the remaining factories seem to be in
mainland China and Taiwan.
- Marshall
Sewing Machine Industrial is a Taiwanese company that got into the
manual portable typewriter business in 1996 (!).
- Shanghai
Weilv Mechanism Company also got into the typewriter business in
the '90s.
- Zhangjiagang
Feiteng was making typewriters in mainland China in the 2000s.
- Mehano makes a variety
of toy typewriters in Slovenia; some were manual but they now all seem
to be electronic.
- Will Davis documents Chinese manual portables circa 2005 here: Portable
Typewriters TODAY.
- The Olympia SG 3N was the ultimate 21st-century
manual typewriter -- '50s technology in a
high-tech black exterior, and ready to type the euro character. I do
not know when or where these were manufactured, but believe they were
older machines that have been reconditioned and modified. These are now
sold out.
- Search Alibaba.com for typewriters and typewriter
supplies made around the world today.
The following companies that gained fame from their typewriters are
still in business. Olivetti and Smith-Corona do not currently sell
typewriters.
The Typosphere
Enter the typosphere, the realm of blogs about typewriters and
typewriting. Many are typecasts -- an increasingly popular form
of
blogging in which
writers compose on typewriters, scan or photograph their text, and
upload it to a web
site. You can find long lists of links to the typosphere at these two
blogs:
- Welcome to the
Typosphere
--
a central gathering point for
typewriter bloggers (see the blogroll on the right side of the page)
Typewriters in the News
- UK's last
typewriter
produced (BBC, November 2012) (Followup story: 5 Reasons to Still
Use a Typewriter)
- Time
for
a Typewriter Renaissance? (Salon, June 2012)
- Steve
Soboroff's typewriter time machines: an interview and photo gallery
of this collector's typewriters owned by famous people (May 2012).
- The
New York Times reports on Maya Stein's "Type Rider" project (May
2012).
- A
Typewriter Renaissance: CBS Sunday Morning story from February 2012.
- A
2011 report on typewriters in a school classroom and a Phoenix
typewriter repair shop.
- Listen
to this KIRO radio report on the Snohomish, Washington Type-in
(Feb. 2011)
- Phillytyper
sponsored the first Philadelphia Type-in and has more up his sleeve.
- A story from Wired (of all things) about three
San Francisco Bay Area typewriter repair shops.
- Check out the latest stories featuring typewriters,
as provided by Google News.
- The
Toronto Globe & Mail presents a story and video about
typewriter collector Martin Howard (April 2009).
- The Vanishing Craft of the Typewriter Repairman: an
NPR story by Margot Adler (April 2006), featuring Paul Schweitzer of
Manhattan's Gramercy Typewriter and an interview with the creator of
this site.
- Scribes tap, tap, happy until the final ... ding!: a
piece by Bo Emerson of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
(February 2006).
- Backspacing
in Time: a report on typewriter repair in the DC area (February
2006).
- What's so Special
About a Hermes 3000?: Julia Keller, Chicago Tribune
cultural critic, investigates Larry McMurtry's favorite typewriter
(January 2006).
- Typewriters
& Their Elusive Appeal: a March 2004 issue from the University
of Toronto newspaper.
- Heavy
Metal
Writing: a well-written paean to the typewriter by Anna Dittmer
(Indiana Daily Student, Oct. 2003).
- Clack
of Typewriter Still Stirring Minds:
a bit by USA Today founder Al Neuharth, written in the trademark
USA Today style (or lack thereof).
- Typewriters
hold key to collectors' hearts (June 2003)
- Keystrokes
of Genius: (New York Times, June 2002): Bruce McCall
reports on famed mystery writer Rex Regis's 1909 Glab-Porkovnyka, and
other favorite old typewriters of the literati ...
- An article in the University
of Chicago Magazine about oddball alumni collectors includes a bit
on the creator of this site.
- True
To Type: a May 2001 article on typewriter collecting
in the Washington Post quotes a number of members of our
eccentric little community.
- Y2K
bug? 'No problema' with typewriters: Learn about how manual
typewriters are still prospering in Mexico. The Christian Science
Monitor, August 1999.
- Antiques
Road Show: a reporter from Inc. tries trading his
laptop for an old Corona (June 1999).
- Ever-beloved
typewriters hang on:
AP story, May 1999.
- Writer's
Block, an
installation by Sheryl Oring consisting of steel cages filled with
typewriters from the 1920s and 30s, commemorates the Nazi book
burnings of 1933. This project has created some strong feelings among
typewriter collectors. A
September 2003 New York Times article about the piece
can be found here.
- A typewriter fan discussed his love of the machines on NPR's All
Things Considered in September 1998. To hear the story in RealAudio
format, click
here.
- Read an article on typewriter man extraordinaire Martin Tytell
from The Atlantic
Monthly, November, 1997.
The Cutting Edge of Retro
- Type-O-Matic is a
service
that will type text for you on a typewriter and mail it to its
destination in a real paper envelope. For special occasions!
- The
Chromatic Typewriter by Tyree Callahan: a device for writing colors?
- miTypewriter
is an app that lets you simulate a typewriter on your iPhone, iPod
Touch, or iPad.
- usbtypewriter.com
presents a clever way to get a
manual typewriter to work as a computer keyboard.
- Jamie Wilson presents his typewriter-keyboard hybrids in this YouTube
video. He's got a relatively simple way to make it work!
- Low-End
Theory: The Clacking Never Stops: a wry look at typewriters in the
computer age, by Brendan I. Koerner.
- Visual Typewriter
is software that lets you use a virtual manual typewriter on your PC.
How warped is that?
- Joel Zahn explains how to turn an
Underwood #5
into a PC computer.
- The
Electri-Clerk: what you get when you meld an Underwood
and a Macintosh.
- The
typewriter-keyboard conversion: another hybrid typewriter-computer
-- with instructions for doing it yourself.
- Install Noisy Typer
on your Mac and enjoy the classic sound of a manual
typewriter as you process your words.
- If you use a PC, you'll need typewriter.exe
to do the same job.
- Stop by the Vintage
Type
site and see their cool fonts based on old typewriters.
- Here's a place
to go if you're looking for typewriter fonts for your computer. By
the way, no "typewriter" font is ever
going to look perfectly authentic. For the best results,
you have to actually use a typewriter, then scan the results (that's
how I got the typing on this site, using my Remington Noiseless
Portable #7).
- 123greetings.com
offers some cute electronic greeting cards you can send to your friends
on "Typewriter
Day" (June 23).
Miscellanea
- The Typewriter in the
21st
Century is a documentary film now in progress (2012) about the
typewriter
revival. Check out their Facebook
page too.
- Untouched
Poetry: poems made by typewriter.
- Typewriters on YouTube: all kinds of short films that
include typewriters. Some funny stuff.
- Flickr
Writing Machines Group: photography devoted to "typewriters,
printing presses and movable type -- anything to do with the mechanical
reproduction or creation of the written word."
- World Record for Typing Numbers in Words: typing up
to "one million," in words, on manual typewriters -- a worthwhile way
to spend 16 years of your life? You decide.
- How typewriters are made: an illuminating technical
discussion.
- The
world's biggest typewritten portrait is the brainchild of Uday
Talwalkar.
- Visit the collection of typewriter
paintings by Deb Kumar Biswas.
- More typewritten art, by Winifred T. Caldwell, can be found at
the TypEtching
site.
- "Basic Typing, Part I: Methods" is a rare typing instruction film
made by the US Navy during World War 2, hosted and narrated by a
then-famous typist, Lenore Benton. The film begins with a look at some
beautiful antique typewriters, then various current (as of 1943)
machines. Then Ms. Benton gets down to business and teaches her
techniques for lightning-fast typing. The film is divided into Part
1
and Part
2.
- Hommage
is a modified typewriter by artist Leopoldo Maler. A very
"inflammatory" piece of art ...
- Ribbon
Tin Connection: learn all about typewriter ribbon tins at this site
maintained by Darryl Rehr.
- ASCII
Art Gallery: pictures that you could make with typewriters,
if you were so inclined. Includes a history of ASCII and typewriter
art.
- At Retinascope
you can find two animated films made on a typewriter.
- Time-Warp is
an attractive
and intriguing site about "vintage technology."
- Irish
Typewriter Keyboards:
An intriguing report from Michael Everson.
- The
Curta Homepage, based in Austria,
offers a virtual museum of Curta calculators and other interesting
old calculating machines.
- Stop by Erez Kaplan's
interesting site on antique
calculators
and join his mailing
list for calculating machines.
- Ribbon
Tin Connection is a valuable online source for those who collect
typewriter ribbon tins.
- Learn about the Dvorak
keyboard. This fine site includes many links to further
such sites.
- For a detailed scholarly exploration of the QWERTY-Dvorak issue,
which casts some doubt on the superiority of Dvorak, read The
Fable of
the Keys,
by Stan Liebowitz and Stephen E. Margolis.
- Responses
to Liebowitz and Margolis can be found here.
