115 typewriters on the move

The move we've been planning for all year has finally arrived. The movers cleared out the house, minus typewriters and other essential items (okay, the typewriters aren't essential but I wouldn't entrust their care to a moving company!)

At W's suggestion, I decided to take advantage of the great empty space of the living room to do a group photo of all 115 of my typewriters. I spent several hours last night arranging them (with his welcome help in carrying them around) and posted an out-of-focus teaser to the Antique Typewriter Collectors group on facebook.

So here they are, all 114 portables and 1 lone standard, laid out for your eyes to feast.

I'll save any grand speeches for my beloved Tacoma for another time.
But, the next time you see me, I'll be in Sacramento.

Would you like a typewriter calendar?

Recently, Joe Van Cleave's post has given me the idea to create a typewriter calendar. It'll be a nice photography project for me, and something pleasant to grace your walls with. W and I already bought our 2015 calendar (because it's the best non-typewriter calendar ever), but there's no reason to not make a typewriter one, too. Perhaps it's a bit late in the year to be starting a project like this, but I think it ought to be ready to order by Christmas!  I'd prefer to be able to design the calendar from scratch rather than just insert photos into an online template, but I'm looking into various ways of going about making this.

So what do you think? Would you be interested in buying a typewriter calendar this year? I'm not thinking of giving it a specific theme, other than including only pre-WWII portable machines as a general rule (with exceptions for a few that fit the theme but were made in the late 40s or early 50s). I will be taking all-new photos for the calendar.  Have a look through my collection on the typewriter database. What do you want to see on your wall during the upcoming year? Would you rather see detail shots, full views, or a mix of the two? Let me know in the comments!

In the meantime, here are the first two parts of an aborted four-part photography session for my collection that I took this previous summer. I arranged them by year of manufacture so this covers 1920 through 1956. They're pretty outdated at this point, with machines I've sold, and missing machines I've since bought.

Brothers Grimm

1957 Olympia SM3 1052558

Apparently I had my numbers mixed up… the younger brother is actually the older one, by 2 years. I have no idea how I got that wrong. Perhaps I was looking for connections that didn't exist.

Wilhelm's typewriter database gallery with photos and type sample

If you have a place in your heart for Wilhelm, send me an email! (schreibstang at gmail dot com) I'm not expecting a really valuable machine in trade, I'm open to really any good condition manual portable typewriter that I don't already have but want.

Sent from my new Olympia SM3, Jacob Grimm

An old story and a new Torpedo

1951 Torpedo 18b 570772

the back piece of the carriage was missing, so I replaced it with black cardstock,
inspired by notagain's makeshift ribbon cover

Sent from my new Torpedo 18b

The collection has grown to 75

That's a lot of portable typewriters! This was the first time I had to split my collection into two groups to photograph them all! I grouped them by brand name roughly alphabetically. This, of course, brings to attention an interesting fact.

The first half of the alphabet contains many more typewriter brands/manufacturers than the second, but at least in the United States, they are far less common! The second half of the alphabet, on the other hand, only contains a few brand names but most of them are plentiful here.

You might notice a few typewriters in this group that I haven't mentioned before. This is because I have 8 typewriters that aren't fully functioning and need something major fixed with them (carriage problems, loose typeslugs, etc.) I plan on keeping them and hopefully fixing them myself or else getting them fixed, and then that's when I'll give them a proper reveal. There are also 2 machines that haven't had their chance to shine yet due to recent aquisition-ness.

Going through my collection like this has prompted me to reconsider how much I want certain typewriters, and I have a few that I'd like to sell to fellow typospherians at decent prices or else an agreeable trade. These are nice machines that I like, but know they'd be better off in another home. At the same time, I don't want to put them on eBay because I kind of want them. If nobody wants them, I'll probably keep them for now. :) Keep a lookout for a post in the near future for details!