Does Anyone Else Also Use Manual Typewriters? What For?

[nipsip]

Sorry No!

[kealani]

This is a somewhat rare Smith Corona Electra 120 in Cursive. Found at Goodwill for less than $20 and then did repairs and refurb.  What a wonderful running "typer".  

While not a "fountain pen", it is an instrument to compose thoughtful and deliberate prose depending on the "writer".

And, after all, the craft of writing is . . . . . 

[kealani]

One source for vintage and unique paper stationery to write on with fountain pens or typewriter. They have some very interesting things. I've tried the larger "sample pack" and it's good.

Etsy: "Teipiadur"

Teipiadur Fine Vintage Writing Machines & Analog Accessories

https://www.etsy.com/shop/Teipiadur

 

I'm just a customer that found the site from a FPN referral.

k

[essayfaire]

On 4/1/2023 at 7:49 PM, Kamuela said:

This is a somewhat rare Smith Corona Electra 120 in Cursive. Found at Goodwill for less than $20 and then did repairs and refurb.  What a wonderful running "typer".  

While not a "fountain pen", it is an instrument to compose thoughtful and deliberate prose depending on the "writer".

And, after all, the craft of writing is . . . . . 

I seem unable to find an emoji with it's jaw on the floor, but had I found one, I would have posted it here, underneath the pictures of the treasure you have found!

 

It can print and make its little es like backwards threes, like I do!  

 

I'm grinning.

[Vici8]

I still use a typewriter for educational purposes.

 

My father was a university lecturer in the 70s and 80s, he had a Czechoslovak made Consul Model 231.2 portable with a light grey vinyl case. One of my childhood memories is the distintive clack-clack-clack of that machine. When I was a little kid he wrote a lot on it at home: articles, book manuscripts, exam subjects, all sorts of official paperwork. As I statarted school in the late 80's I got interested into it and he taught me how to type and I learnt a bunch of letters by using it. Fun fact: at some point in the mid 80s he had to take the typewriter to the local police station and register it, together with a writing sample of all letters and characters. Why? Well, back than a typewriter was the only way one could write large quantities of the same text (like an anti-regime manifesto). You see, just like each gun leaves a distinctive rifling grooves mark on the bullet, so does each individual typewriter have its small differences, tolerances, wear marks, etc. Any dissident spreading unrest would be easily identified.

 

After the fall of communism he got an electric typewriter (can't recall the type) which had both black and red tape. I was amazed how little effort it required to type. Gradually I lost interest in them by the 4th grade or so, he took the electric one to the univeristy (he was already a professor at that point and had a secretary do all the typing for him). By the late 90s everybody was using computers and printers. The Consul was abandoned in its case in the back of the small storage room in our apartment. I dug it up sometimes in the early 2010s and showed it to my than girlfriend (current wife). She had never used one and had a blast with it an entire afternoon. Than it went back into storage for another decade. On a cold spring sunday in 2022, my oldest daughter asked me to "show her something interesting" so I remembered the typewriter and pulled it out. She was absolutely fascinated by the "mechanicness" of it all, how you press a key and the corresponding letter appears on paper right away.  Mind, this is a child of the digital (immaterial) age, used to laptops, mobile phones and touchscreens, so seeing her work being printed in front of her in real time must be quite rewarding. She was in prep year at school than, and they were learning the capital letters, but the typewriter helped her learn the small letters pretty fast. Ever since, once every few weekends when it's ugly outside and we stay home, I have to help her set it up and she starts clacking away, writing short imaginary stories now. Clack-clack-clack...sounds like childhood again...

 

[inkstainedruth]

Interesting that this thread has been resurrected (yet again).

A few weeks ago, I was in an antiques mall in Clarion County, PA, and one of the booths had not only a regular typewriter, but one with an extra long platen for (I guess) doing newsletters or local newspapers or the like -- I think it was about somewhere between a foot and a half and two feet long.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[kealani]

2 hours ago, Vici8 said:

I still use a typewriter for educational purposes.

 

My father was a university lecturer in the 70s and 80s, he had a Czechoslovak made Consul Model 231.2 portable with a light grey vinyl case. One of my childhood memories is the distintive clack-clack-clack of that machine. When I was a little kid he wrote a lot on it at home: articles, book manuscripts, exam subjects, all sorts of official paperwork. As I statarted school in the late 80's I got interested into it and he taught me how to type and I learnt a bunch of letters by using it. Fun fact: at some point in the mid 80s he had to take the typewriter to the local police station and register it, together with a writing sample of all letters and characters. Why? Well, back than a typewriter was the only way one could write large quantities of the same text (like an anti-regime manifesto). You see, just like each gun leaves a distinctive rifling grooves mark on the bullet, so does each individual typewriter have its small differences, tolerances, wear marks, etc. Any dissident spreading unrest would be easily identified.

 

After the fall of communism he got an electric typewriter (can't recall the type) which had both black and red tape. I was amazed how little effort it required to type. Gradually I lost interest in them by the 4th grade or so, he took the electric one to the univeristy (he was already a professor at that point and had a secretary do all the typing for him). By the late 90s everybody was using computers and printers. The Consul was abandoned in its case in the back of the small storage room in our apartment. I dug it up sometimes in the early 2010s and showed it to my than girlfriend (current wife). She had never used one and had a blast with it an entire afternoon. Than it went back into storage for another decade. On a cold spring sunday in 2022, my oldest daughter asked me to "show her something interesting" so I remembered the typewriter and pulled it out. She was absolutely fascinated by the "mechanicness" of it all, how you press a key and the corresponding letter appears on paper right away.  Mind, this is a child of the digital (immaterial) age, used to laptops, mobile phones and touchscreens, so seeing her work being printed in front of her in real time must be quite rewarding. She was in prep year at school than, and they were learning the capital letters, but the typewriter helped her learn the small letters pretty fast. Ever since, once every few weekends when it's ugly outside and we stay home, I have to help her set it up and she starts clacking away, writing short imaginary stories now. Clack-clack-clack...sounds like childhood again...

 

Thanks so much for sharing wonderful real life experiences.  Vintage typewriters, fountain pens, and film cameras, et al, and what they produce as end results and the experiences of them, are timeless. They take full human engagement, to think, to tinker and move about, and also engage one's emotions for prose and creativity, etc. Thanks again. k.

[abstract49]

I got along okay with my Underwood 5 through most of college - typed my own research papers, my first wife’s, and some other students’ for a fee - until I went to work in an abstract/title insurance office where the boss insisted I use the electrics.

 

In  my next office (same business) there were still some manuals, and I had one employee who preferred them.  She had beautifully manicured and lacquered nails, and I swear she typed over 100 wpm and never broke one!

 

At my age (74) I don’t think I could go back to a manual.  Heck, I get flustered with the one portable electric we have.

[kealani]

[kealani]

1967 Adler Tippa portable typewriter,  in Italic, made in Western Germany, like new condition, restored.

[Stompie]

I have a pen friend who uses his typewriter to send me letters and it is great to read them especially in some beautiful fonts that he uses on his typewriters!

 

Sure, we are fountain pen people but sometimes life gets in the way so, I am just glad I still get to correspond with him even though he now struggles to use a fountain pen.

He also sends me pictures of the various type writers he finds, restores and then uses, so it is all very interesting to me.

 

Strange, he too is in Arizona..................😂😂🤣

[kealani]

3 hours ago, Stompie said:

I have a pen friend who uses his typewriter to send me letters and it is great to read them especially in some beautiful fonts that he uses on his typewriters!

 

Sure, we are fountain pen people but sometimes life gets in the way so, I am just glad I still get to correspond with him even though he now struggles to use a fountain pen.

He also sends me pictures of the various type writers he finds, restores and then uses, so it is all very interesting to me.

 

Strange, he too is in Arizona..................😂😂🤣

1967 "Adler" Tippa sample Italic font: more rare...

[kealani]

1975 Adler J2 mint condition, made in Western Germany

[kealani]

1954 Olympia SM-3, made in Western Germany.....What were you doing in 1954?

 

[BDK01]

Once bought a portable machine made by Flying Fish (otherwise known as the Shanghai Typewriter Factory) on Taobao in c. 2016 for a quite simple purpose: practicing techniques of using various word processing (!) utensils. Then, took it to our family villa in Japan two years later, occasionally used it till '19, and the pandemic… Hasn't touched it for more than 4 years!

 

Flying Fish was known in the Mainland Chinese stationery trade for making more Han script machines than their Latin script counterparts, while Hero (the Shanghai II Typewriter Factory; unrelated to the Hero Pen Factory, sharing trademarks for export purposes only) was seen as concentrating on and producing superior Latin script ones than the former.

[kealani]

11 hours ago, BDK01 said:

Once bought a portable machine made by Flying Fish (otherwise known as the Shanghai Typewriter Factory) on Taobao in c. 2016 for a quite simple purpose: practicing techniques of using various word processing (!) utensils. Then, took it to our family villa in Japan two years later, occasionally used it till '19, and the pandemic… Hasn't touched it for more than 4 years!

 

Flying Fish was known in the Mainland Chinese stationery trade for making more Han script machines than their Latin script counterparts, while Hero (the Shanghai II Typewriter Factory; unrelated to the Hero Pen Factory, sharing trademarks for export purposes only) was seen as concentrating on and producing superior Latin script ones than the former.

Interesting input. Do you have any pictures?

thanks

j

[Claes]

Not any more (not since the first word processing sw entered my life).

But I still fondly remember Halda Norden No 5. https://sodersens.se/objekt/skrivmaskin-halda-norden/8415

It was a fast machine. Next positive memory comes from IBM Selectric -- the one with the "golf ball", which

was even faster!

 

 

[Estycollector]

I've decided my granddaughter needs a proper roll top desk for the typewriter. 

[kealani]

20 hours ago, Estycollector said:

I've decided my granddaughter needs a proper roll top desk for the typewriter. 

Very nice!

pictures?

[hsianloon]

I was gifted one a decade ago, but while moving countries, the box containing the typewriter, favourite books I scribbled a lot on during my formative years in college, and a few bottle of inks did not arrive on the new shores

 

I've never gotten back into it for some reason, and they seem very expensive to try and get back into these days, at least in Australia. I've not seen any shops/online ones selling serviced ones for under 400+ AUD, which is a bit of an absurd amount.  The ones on other places eg facebook marketplace seem to be all damaged and needing more technical know how /time than I have unfortunately.