I must admit that my gut reaction to this idea was “No, don’t stick anything to your typewriters!” But upon deeper reflection, I can see the value in having your name attached to the machine in some way. I say this due to a personal experience I had with mine. If you will indulge me a (fairly) brief anecdote…

I am a new arrival to the hobby after receiving some free typewriters at Christmas time. One of them, a 1947 Smith-Corona Clipper, had a label attached bearing a previous owner’s name and address. It was a very small piece of paper about the size of a fortune cookie slip, and barely still attached. In fact I forgot to remove it prior to my initial cleaning with an air compressor and blew it right off. I had to search my driveway afterwards and was fortunate to find it amongst the fallen leaves.

I looked up the name online and found the typewriter had belonged to a lady who lived from 1909 to 2002. All I know of her comes from a single Find-A-Grave page containing a very brief biography. She was a dedicated amateur genealogist who had never married nor had children. She was also an only child and is buried with her parents under a common headstone.

Given the years spanned by her life, I think it very possible this lady may have been the typewriter’s original owner. How it found its way from her home in Tennessee to mine in Maryland I may never know. There was a numbered sticker on the outside of the case indicating it may at some point have been part of an auction or estate sale.

So to get back to the point of your post, I very much appreciate knowing some of the history my typewriter went through in its nearly 80 years of existence. Though perhaps somewhat tenuous, I feel a bit of a connection to the typewriter’s previous owner, probably heightened by the fact that she did not appear to have many other people to remember her life. I am glad I found her name on the machine.

Typewriters in the hands of conscientious hobbyists should for the most part be well-maintained and prepared to last for many more decades, if not centuries. I see no downside in recording as much of their history as possible for the enlightenment of future owners. Of course we cannot guarantee they will be interested, but that is up to them.

As to how we pass the machine’s historical information along, that might require some thought. For the typewriters which have a case, if space allows, I like the idea of keeping an information packet in the case underneath the typewriter. My Clipper still had the original manual in its envelope which I have placed into a larger envelope to prevent further deterioration. I plan to eventually type up a sheet containing all I know about the typewriter’s history, including where and when I acquired it, what I have learned about the previous owner(s), and a list of any maintenance and/or repairs I have done to it. I may even include a photo or two of the machine in its present surroundings. And I have placed the original lady’s little address label in a smaller envelope and will keep that in there as well.

But for typewriters sans case, or without any extra room in the case, a label may be the best way to convey the fact of your ownership. I like the photo you posted of an Olympia with room on the back for multiple small labels, but I don’t know if most typewriters would be so accommodating. I don’t know what type of label would be best, but I would be averse to doing anything that a future owner would not be able to undo. Perhaps a thin metal plate attached via double-sided tape would be my initial idea. As to where you might have one made up, my first thought would be the kind of plaque you can get custom engraved at a trophy shop. I don’t know how small and thin of a plaque they can make but it is worth asking. Come to think of it, even the most snug typewriter case would likely have a spot somewhere on its interior where you could affix the label or plaque rather than to the typewriter itself.

I have to say here that while I am curious about the history of my typewriters, most of that curiosity comes from a desire to know the original owner who used it in a time when typewriters were the major way of recording information to paper. I like to imagine the genealogist compiling family trees for relatives and writing letters to churches and courthouses seeking information in a pre-Internet age. Or the college student taking class notes on her ultraportable while protests against the Vietnam war rage outside. Were I to own a typewriter one hundred years from now, I’m not sure I would be quite as interested in knowing the numerous collectors it had passed through on its way to me. Although they would all certainly deserve respect and appreciation as people who cherished and cared for the machine and helped shepherd it from one generation to the next.