July, 2026 | Chris Aldrich

Acquired Lit-Ning Model 1K Card Index for 2 x 3.5" Cards

Overall dimensions: 3.5 x 4.5 x 8"

I picked up this vintage card index meant for filing business cards on July 20th for a fantastic $1.50. I hadn’t seen a card index this small before and suspected that it was designed as a sort of Rolodex for storing 2 x 3.5″ standard business cards. It makes an excellent storage for those as well as for the several dozen other old affinity cards and library cards I’ve got. Of course, my problem is that it only fits about half of the business cards I’ve got.

There are a few places that still make card dividers for this size format, but I opted to make my own from 11 x 17″ card stock.

Acquired A-Z (1-25) Gray Pressboard 1/5 Cut Tab File Guides, Letter Sized (Oxford Pendaflex)

25/Set (PN 925)

I saw these while browsing through a thrift store and correctly clocked them as thick tabbed dividers though the person who rang them up for $1.50 thought they were folders because of their heft.

I’ve been wanting some for use with 8.5 x 11″ index cards, but thought that most major stationers had quit manufacturing them decades ago. It turns out you can still get them from Tops via a variety of different office supply outlets, though closer to the range of $15-40 per pack. I’m sure these will work wonders in my Shaw-Walker filing cabinet.

Interestingly, one outlet I saw was pitching them for dividing files within a single a folder, but I’m guessing they weren’t aware of how these were used historically. (The entire group of 25 would fill up a standard manilla folder all by itself!) It’s sort of a shame that they only count up to 25 instead of 31 so that one could also easily use them as a days-of-the-month tickler file.

Acquired 1971 Sears Newport Portable Typewriter (Messa Typewriter )

Serial number: 5124993
Sears Model No. 405-5295 (Pica)
carriage shift; bichrome; 3 touch select settings; tabulator; 13" wide carriage; key de-jammer; carriage lock; 44 keys & 88 characters
Manufactured in Portugal

How could I not pick up his avocado beauty at Acts Thrift for $17.36?! A day’s worth of cleaning ought to bring this bad boy up to snuff. I’m most shocked at the fantastic design of its case.

This is a re-branded Messa typewriter manufactured in Portugal with other known re-badgings as the ABC 3001 and the Brother XL-1016. These were made/advertised from 1971 to 1974, but based on the serial numbers in the Typewriter Database, I would suspect mine is from the early side of 1971. (It’s entirely possible they made the entire run in a year and sold them through 1974.) Including this one there are currently only seven exemplars in the database, but many of them are owned by some of the most prolific collectors.

With my 52nd birthday coming up this may be one of the youngest machines I own, though it’s still a few years older than me.

And how could you possibly not love the green typebar jam release key? The only thing that could be cooler would be to have versions in harvest yellow, burnt orange, and coppertone brown. I’ll have to get my old Tupperware set out to properly show this off.

Manual available on Richard Polt’s site.

I’ve already fixed/adjusted most of the primary issues and done a little bit of the work to clean this out. I should be able to finish up the rest of it over the long weekend with the exception of one or two screws that I can tell are missing and need replacements. Portions of the case are going to require some attention as well.