Poems for sale...

...not by me, I should add.  I picked up this story about Ryan Ashley Knowles that I think's worth sharing.  

Read Mauricio Rocha's full story in Denver Westword...

Videos

Maschinengeschrieben had a knack of turning up interesting videos which feature typewriters. Here's a couple which came my way via Google alerts. The first is from British Pathé.

...and a short film from Groton, the cradle of Corona. (Opens in new window)

Spring Chicken

Dave's 50 today. A Spring Chicken, compared to this 1932 Corona Four in Bruce Green and Gold.

Happy Birthday, Dave.

NB: no keys were chopped in the manufacture of this gif. 

The wee fellow

I'll typecast from the Big-O when I have fixed the left margin and got the paper table/scale properly reinstalled, and I'll try to include an appreciation of the 'feel' for notagain. That's if I'm not too distracted by each seismic shock when the escapement releases a ton of iron southwards, one character at a time.

Meanwhile, here's a better photo of that other, smaller Brit - a 1962 Empire-Corona s/n 4Y 664648. Uninspiring in silver Hammerite, but interesting to see it listed on tw-db under British Typewriter's Empire brand. In production immediately after the 'I-can't-believe-it-isn't-a-Hermes' Aristocrat. If I have it correctly, the Baby begat the Aristocrat which begat the SMC Empire-Corona et al. It is a familiar format but this one looks like it is built to a price. Imagine, a 1962 typewriter with no bichromatic option. Maybe they saved the frills for the De Luxe? The nearest in layout to this one in the collection is Antares Parva - the SMC looks and feels cheaper by comparison. I'll check under the hood sometime for similarities - it has the same slotted alloy billet with keys secured by a dowel.

The platen is very spindly, so it has a tendency to put a curl in the paper causing it to feed back in. Then again, it has been pretty humid lately - which can't help. The good news is that a couple of pages typing and a drop of oil seem to have freed all the keys and got the line return ratchet engaging properly. This machine appears to have many incarnations so, if anyone wants a copy of the 6pp A5 instructions, just yell and I'll post a pdf. I suppose the copyright holders won't be paying much attention.

Happy Canada Day

...and thank you, Canadian workers, for my 1939 Remington Portable Model 5 and my 1936 Corona Silent, maple syrup, canoes, Leonard Cohen, Catelyn Bett, etc. etc.

My stats show a small readership in that fair country - enjoy the day.

Meanwhile, Project Underwood continues.

Dove grey

I just picked up this Olympia from a nice lady in Cowley, Oxford, home of the Mini. You could say it was Dove Grey - a favourite colour of the Mini's forebear, the Morris Minor. It needs some cleaning and the carriage is grinding on the bodywork, so I'm just off to the hardware shop to get some half-inch tap washers to replace the rubber mounting bushes.

The case is painted metallic Hammerite grey. From the finish, the styling and the age of the machine - I'd guessed it was fibreglass like the case for my Imperial Good Companion 5. Not so. It is steam formed beech ply and I'm tempted to strip it and varnish it! According to Schumann, the s/n 728899 makes it a 1956 SM-3. It has sprung key tops but no tabs.

It was a lazy purchase. I saw it was local and checked I could pick it up from the seller (nobody wants to package a typewriter if they don't have to) and got it for £9. The intention being to fix it up and sell it - just for fun - to see if I could turn base metal into gold like the recent Channel Blue Corona 4 proved was possible. Could be tough parting with it now though...

Channel blues

Have good photography and an active Typosphere helped to inflate prices of used typewriters? You quite often see people on ebay offering, say, a Remington Noiseless Portable with a reserve of £300 - needless to say, they don't sell.

I was I was keeping an eye on a Corona 4 in Duco Channel Blue on ebay - just idle curiosity, you know - and which did sell for a very high price, as did this pretty ordinary-looking Underwood from the same seller.  I have ones just like them which cost around £20 a few years ago.

Then there's the article posted yesterday on Technorati about old typers being a good investment. Anyone starting to think about insurance yet? And so much for my dreams one day of finding (and affording) a Lavender and gold C4! 

Has the sad day may have arrived when a used typewriter costs many times more than the postage?

This is what a £113 Corona 4 in Channel Blue looks like and...

...this is what a £20 Corona 4 in Channel Blue looks like

Cider with Rosie

Laurie Lee's bucolic growing-up novel, Cider with Rosie was one of the set books in English Literature in secondary school, along with Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies and the poems of Auden and Sassoon.

His Corona 3 looks like an early right-hand shift only model. The price goes to show how much provenance adds to the amount people will pay for what's generally a £25-£30 secondhand machine.

# Wednesday

'ache/Ash Weds: Closer to typecast, the apprentice wrestles with Bruce Green.

Oil bodkin

Here's an oil can which arrived in the lid of a Corona 4. The oil in it has a fragrant eucalyptus scent. Over-oiling was the curse of many a typewriter. It congeals to a sticky mess over the decades. The flat-ended applicator bodkin is meant to administer the smallest of drops. Looks like a mini-dipstick.

Length: 90mm

All done

Nancy made a bee-line for The Good Companion

Unless I find a typewriter under the bed or in a cupboard, and until the next one comes along, I've done taking photos. If you enjoy looking at this collection, please comment and share a link. Surprised it only came to 22 machines. Here's my wish list - keep your eyes open and drop me a note if you stumble upon any of the following:

• Oliver 3 or 5
• Anything in bakelite
• 1970's Olivetti Valentine
• Hermes 3000 (curvy, like this one)
• Bennett
• Corona 4 in Lavender and Rose Gold
• Blickensderfer 6 (featherweight)

...that'll do for now.