Vintage Word Processing

Well, it's confirmed. I'm on my way to another unhealthy addiction. Received my third and fourth typewriters from the post man the previous week. I have a fifth vintage typewriter on the way but it doesn't count toward this addiction because it is the same model as the fourth machine and will be used to create a refurbished super (read, franken) typewriter.

Here's my typecasting for this post. Note the difference in font between this new Olympia and my original Smith-Corona typewriter. The font on the Olympia is a courier 10 and is all business--just what I would expect from a German-made machine.

 

A beautiful Machine, if I do say so.

Comments

  1. Sometimes I miss a typewriter. Not often, just sometimes.

    .......dhole

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    1. I do enjoy the clacking sound as the hammers strike paper but must say that typing this way is a very humbling experience. It is very difficult to edit-as-you-go and I am forced to witness my moronic and infantile writing abilities and thought process from my own eyes. I never before realized how I change tenses and plurals as I "free write." On the plus side, a typewriter forces me to just write instead of constantly stopping to edit each sentence like I usually do. So, it works great for free writing/mind mapping exercises.

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  2. I always thought I should have married a man named Corona. Or Wesson. Or Jones. :P

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    1. L.G.-You are close already! At one time, the Smith-Corona company was named L.C. Smith, but that might have been when they were still making rifles. I must admit though, it would be cool to hyphenate your name so it reads Smith-Wesson.

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  3. That white Olympia really is beautiful. You made a few typos in your note, but I make so many more than you that I'm super glad I have a word processor and spell check! :-)

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    1. The typewriter seems white in the picture but it is actually a light-colored battleship gray. I think that was a popular color back then--along with black and brownish-green. I decided to post the typing just like it was without fixing the errors. I would normally re-type if I had too many errors but thought it would be more natural to post it in all of its naked glory, flaws and all. Besides, I was talking about using the typewriter for free-writing exercises, so it only seemed fitting to show the typos.

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  4. *giggles* I sort of like running across a typewriter now and again, but I've never met anybody who collected them and I haven't owned one since about 1989.

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    1. I first learned how to type on a manual typewriter (yes, I'm that old) so they bring a bit of nostalgia, and I like to hear the clackity-clack of the keys as I'm typing. Just with they came with spellcheck and auto correct! I suppose I got into collecting them like all my other hobbies--because of my addictive personality. But hey, would you rather I collected typewriters or Jim Beam bottles and crack pipes? Just kidding, I hope I'm not that bad.

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  5. LOVE this! You're inspiring to actually, oh I don't know, TYPE on mine! :)

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  6. My comedy writing partner and I in the 80's bought a second hand manual Underwood. The guy wanted ten bucks. My friend said it's broken. It only types caps and goes to every other line. He said then I'll take 8 dollars. Little did he know radio copy is written in caps and double spaced. We wrote jokes about it all the home. used that thing for 12 years.

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