Childhood Typewriters
I’ve had a hollow space in my chest where a typewriter wanted to be. I’d had a few inexpensive plastic ones in my childhood before having a really spectacular Smith-Corona, but I thought that through many moves it had been long lost. Until, that is, I visited my parents on spring break this past week. While going through some old papers and boxes, I ran across a dusty, but stunning old jewel from my youth.
Hiding in a corner of memorabilia was a hard black box which I immediately recognized as my old portable typewriter! I recall my parents having purchased it at a yard sale and bringing it home for us kids to use in 1984. It took a while back then to clean it up, but I used it for a variety of school projects and papers for several years until its use for school papers was later taken over by an electronic Panasonic word processor. Despite the newer technology I still preferred that old typewriter for composing and noodling around.
Ooh, my little pretty one, my pretty one
So, what is this fantastic jewel? It’s a 1948 Smith-Corona “Clipper” 4C (serial number 4C-242370). It’s still in spectacular shape. I had to re-connect the letter “A”s linkage joint, but all the keys still work well, and it’s going to need a new ribbon. The interior is a bit dusty and needs some cleaning, but a short afternoon of tinkering should make quick work of any issues.
What’s fascinating is that all of the parts and functionalities of the machine came back to me instantaneously when I touched it. I knew all the small subtleties of sliding in a sheet of paper and aligning it to perfection. All the small niceties like the single/double space switch, the margin adjustments, the lovely bell, the ribbon direction adjustment switch, and even the centering mechanism were right there at my fingertips.
Sadly the original key wasn’t with the typewriter’s lock, but it was easily pickable. I’m reasonably sure the key will turn up as I dig through my other childhood memorabilia in the near future. At the worst, I can probably print a new key using a recipe I’ve already found online. I even unearthed a roughly contemporaneous typewriter manual for the Smith-Corona Clipper model.
And the best part is that a young 12 year old was drawn to it and immediately wanted to use it and take it home with us, so the typewriter obsession may go on for at least another generation.
I can’t wait to begin using my new (old) tool for thought in my zettelkasten practice. I’m curious to see what the slow down effect of a manual typewriter has on my writing and thinking work. Perhaps the composition of my cards at the end of the day will have the added satisfaction of punching the keys of a fantastic typewriter.
If nothing else, the Clipper does look quite nice next to my Shaw-Walker card index which is from the same era.
Ultra-luxury of the “Clipper”
Just where does the Smith-Corona “Clipper” sit in the pantheon of typewriters? A variety of writers in the 21st century still talk about their love and nostalgia of specific typewriters mentioning the design esthetic of the Olivetti, a remembrance of an old Underwood, or their fondness of a Remington, but I think Tom Hanks sums things up pretty well:
This is what I would suggest: if you wanted the perfect typewriter that will last forever that would be a great conversation piece, I’d say get the Smith-Corona Clipper. That will be as satisfying a typing experience as you will ever have.
—Tom Hanks, actor, producer, typewriter enthusiast and collector, author of Uncommon Type on CBS Sunday Morning: “Tom Hanks, Typewriter Enthusiast” [00:07:30]
Of course Hanks comes by this analysis naturally as the Clipper typewriter’s namesake is the Boeing 314 Clipper, which appears prominently on the front left panel of the typewriter’s cover. The context and history of some of this airplane have been lost to current generations. Twelve of these air yachts were built by Boeing and operated for a decade between 1938 and 1948. Nine of the airplanes were operated by Pan-Am as transoceanic “one class” ultra-luxury air travel featuring lounges, dining areas with silver service for six-course meals from four-star chefs served by white coated stewards, seats that converted to sleeping bunks for overnight accommodations, and separate male and female dressing rooms for the comfort of elite businesspeople and wealthy travelers in the mid-twentieth century. As an indicator of the exclusivity and expense at the time, a one-way ticket from San Francisco to Hong Kong on the Clipper was listed for $760, which is equivalent to about $15,000 adjusted for inflation in 2021 (Klaás, 1989, p. 20).
Pan Am’s Clipper service of the 1940s represents the romance of flight in that era in the same way Smith-Corona Clipper represents the romance of typing in the ensuing decades. Most Americans’ nostalgia for the luxury and exotic freedom of airline flight in the 1960s and 1970s was built on this early experience operating the Clipper nearly 20 years before.
Typeface sample
References
“Tom Hanks, Typewriter Enthusiast.” CBS News Sunday Morning. CBS, October 15, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTtDb73NkNM.
Klaás, M. D. (December 1989). “Clipper Across the Pacific, Part One”. Air Classics. 25 (12).
@chrisaldrich I never owned such a thing.The nearest was a IBM selectric typewriter. used for my writing in maths I still have the fonts in type balls. https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/selectric/
IBM100 – The Selectric Typewriter
@chrisaldrich that’s one beautiful machine for you and Mr Hanks.
@brunowinck I used a Selectric II for a while in the mid-90s and loved those interchangeable type balls. Never had one for doing maths though and at about that time I was getting heavily into LaTeX…
@chrisaldrich https://anagora.org/SmithCoronahttps://anagora.org/ToolsForThoughthttps://anagora.org/Typewriterhttps://anagora.org/Zettelkasten
Node [[smithcorona]] in anagora.org
Over the weekend I had the good fortune to hear about a little stationery shop 10 minutes from my house. Baum-kuchen is a spectacular little space hiding over on Lincoln in Altadena with a warm, wabi-sabi (わびさび) charm. The business began in 2010, but opened up their physical location in 2019. Obviously not the most fortuitous time to have opened a brick and mortar location, they’re primarily still online, but have regular open hours usually from 12-5pm on Sundays.
The space, while modest, is rich and well-appointed, as one would expect a fine stationery store to be. I spent almost as much time appreciating the small touches of hardware for merchandising purposes as I did lusting after the stationery, pens, pencils, cases, bags, washi tape, stamps, paper twine, and miscellanea. I think the first three things I asked for prices on were store fixtures. (But with a lush, rare Wabash Cabinet on display, who wouldn’t?)
If you’re looking for the corporate, completist, and cramped feel of something like Kinokuniya, this is assuredly not that. This is a place to luxuriate in stationery and spark some creativity away from the madding crowd.
Of particular note, they’ve got one of the most beautiful, well-appointed, and fully stocked pigeonhole displays I’ve ever seen for Traveler’s Notebooks. They also offer a nice selection of The Superior Labor products to which they also offer customization touches you can easily add on to make your notebook “Truly Yours”.
They seem to have a full selection of MIDORI paper products, lots of Stalogy, and PERPANEP. Also on offer were analog planners like Jibun Techos, Roterfaden, and Nolty along with brands like Classiky, Kokuyo, Kuretake, Mizushima, Postalco, and ateliers PENELOPE among others.
I’ll take a moment to note that this was the first time I’ve ever seen Roterfaden for sale in a physical shop. They truly are lovely analog items with a high level of tactile joy. I find myself needing more thick felt in my life beyond the large grey mat I use for shodo.
This also reminds me that the shop does a fantastic job of providing physical samples of nearly almost every product that you can open, play with, and try out (including samples of most of the notebook paper!) It’s small touches like this that will keep the stationery afficionados coming back every time.
Community
In addition to all the spectacular things I saw, I would be remiss not to mention one of the kindest touches in the whole shop. Front and center in the main room is a fantastic wooden and metal table with several fine chairs. They invite the community to come in with their journals to sit and write with each other.
I arrived on the early side of their store hours, but just after, two people showed up who browsed for a bit, but then sat down to write and try out some of the available stamps on the table in their own journals. Wakako even invited me to feel free to bring my typewriter to sit and write for a bit in the future. Anyone up to join me? With such a nice space, why not use it on a Sunday afternoon to plan out your week or reflect on the week past?
Beyond the warm and inviting space, they keep things in stock in the store which seem to be marked as sold out in their online storefront. On first blush this could be written down as a potential accounting error or maybe delays in updating the website, but I suspect that they’re carefully holding onto stock for their local community to be able to see items and purchase things in person.
As rare as it is to see a shop revel in the idea of analog, it’s even more refreshing and heartening to see one doing its best to strive towards kindness within its own community the way that Baum-kuchen does.
Next time, with money in my pocket
I usually make a habit of leaving my wallet at home on first visits to nearby stationery stores. (Those inflicted with the gentle madness like me will know why.) But I’ve started a list on my pocket notebook with a few things I must have on my next visit…
Yuruliku flat tool case and flat pen case
Mizushima perpetual calendar stamp
Kaweco Liliput fountain pen with bronze clip
stamps (all of them really…)
Buried Lede: Hobonichi in the United States
There are too many things to like about Baum-kuchen, and I haven’t even mentioned the pastry origins of the German-named shop. Some will scream that I’ve buried the lede in this whole story when I mention the following exciting revelation: This fall, Baum-kuchen will be carrying a wide variety of Hobonichi products!!! I’m only aware of a tiny handful of US-based stores which carry or ship Hobonichi (JetPens anyone?), but Baum-kuchen will be one of them. I’ve generally ordered these directly from Japan in the past, but it will be ever so nice to be able to place an order to a physical shop that’s just a few minutes away. I’m hoping they’ll open up the store on announcement day and have a little party to celebrate. If they do, I’m definitely baking them a homemade tree cake!
In a quest to expand on my analog office practices, last Saturday, I drove out to Rancho Cucamonga to purchase a spectacular midcentury Gaylord Bros.,…
Photo of a typewritten sheet of paper which reads:
Typecasting with IndieWeb Building Blocks I recently brough my old Smith-Corona out of deep storage and begun using it again as a thinking and writing tool. Because some of that work was ultimately for my website, I wanted to have a way to transfer the work easily to my site. With IndieWebCamp San Diego and a mention of typecasting a few months back, I had a small brainstorm. I figured that could easily leverage some of the workflow I had designed in December 2021 for handwriting posts to do the same thing with my typewriter. As it turns out, I didn’t need to do much work. My flow using micropub in combination with Google Doc’s optical character recognition was just just the ticket. Now I can type up almost anything, take a photo which I open up in Google Docs. Docs does the OCR work, I save the document, and IFTTT.com picks up the new document in my folder. IFTTT then sends aa copy of the post to my site using Micropub as a private post. If necessary, I can tweak it a bit and add tags, categories, etc. When I’m done, I can publish it directly or schedule it to a future date. Naturally with other infrastructure, I can automatically syndicate the post to other social media sites using POSSE as well. I remember people back in the day doing typecasting in the early blogosphere. I’m hoping my new IndieWeb method will make doing this for myself a little bit easier. I love this ‘new’ posting interface.
I’ve added my 1948 Smith-Corona Clipper to the Typewriter Database
https://typewriterdatabase.com/1948-smith-corona-clipper.22304.typewriter
Digging into some typewriter pricing history, I found a copy of the 1949 Sears Spring/Summer Catalog, which lists a version of my 1949 Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter (Sears SKU: 3 NM 4584T with Pica Type) for $95.08 on page 285.
Converting 1949 dollars to 2024 using an inflation calculator indicates this is now worth $1,247.75. Considering that I got it for less than the original sale price in 2024 (including shipping) and that it works as well now as it did then, I feel like I got a pretty solid deal.
For comparison the competing portable models in the catalog included:
Royal Arrow $84.48
Smith-Corona Clipper $84.27
Smith-Corona Sterling $89.57
Remington Portable $84.27
Remington Portable with Tabulator $89.57
Underwood Leader $63.40
They also listed the Tower, a standard size desk typewriter, for $99.00 saying it was just a few dollars more than the portables.
For further comparison, the prior year, the 1948 Smith-Corona Clipper, a model of which I also own, was listed for $76.85. Adjusted for inflation this would be $995.96.
I already own and love a 4 series Smith-Corona Clipper, but I’ve been wanting one or more of the family of 5 series Smith-Coronas for…
Typewriter Resources Some of my favorite typewriter information and resources sites: Typewriter Database Print Repair Manuals Digital [.pdf] Repair Manuals Richard Polt’s Classic Typewriter site…