Category: Social Stream

RSVPed Attending QWERTY! A Typewriter Festival
Clicky-clack, we are bringing the typewriters back on Saturday, June 27, from 12 pm to 5 pm, in celebration of National Typewriter Day!

Experience the timeless beauty of typewriters as you test your speed and precision in a typewriter contest, hear from typewriter experts, join in the collaborative process of writing “never-ending tales” on vintage typewriters, look for hidden gems in our scavenger hunt, and much more.

Local vendors and makers are offering typo-o-grams, original poetry, themed merch, retro treasures, hand-crafted greeting cards, and even fully working typewriters for sale. Guests can bring their own typewriter to show, share, use, or get an estimate for repair.

There’s something uniquely inspiring about the sound and feel of these classic machines! Special thanks to Typewriter Connection, our event co-host.

Tickets are $15 for adults, or $12 for students/seniors.
Last year’s event was fantastic, so I’m looking forward to all the things on “tap, tap, tap” for this year. Come and celebrate National Typewriter Day in Southern California.
Acquired 1977 Olympia Report de Luxe Electric Portable Typewriter (SKE Model) (Olympia-Werke AG)
Serial Number: 46-0171787
Olympia Pica No. 12 typeface, 10 pitch, 2.6m/m, 6 lines/inch, keyset tabulator, half-space spacing, vertical spacing, portable, bichrome, segment shift, American keyboard, 44 keys, 88 characters, white and gray plastic body with grey hood and gray plastic keys with white characters
Manufactured in Wilhelmshaven, Germany
Along with Ron Rosenbaum, Steven Levy, Patricia Highsmith, and the fictional Frank Navasky of You’ve Got Mail fame, I have joined the Quiet Cult of the Olympia Report de Luxe Electric Typewriter.

I acquired this at thrift for $21.95 on 2026-05-10 for Mother’s Day in immaculate condition! It’s as if someone used it to type up a few essays then put it in the case for 49 years. Other than some minor wear, this may be the singularly cleanest typewriter I’ve ever purchased. As my first typebar electric Olympia, I was so looking forward to taking it apart and giving it a full clean, oil, and adjust, but beyond wiping off some exterior dust, this machine really needs no work. I’m both disappointed and elated at the same time. 

A frontal view of 1977 Olympia Report de Luxe typewriter sitting on an oak library card catalog next to a bowl of pink decorative balls

Typesample of a frontal view of 1977 Olympia Report de Luxe typewriter on a yellow manilla tag

Close up view of the keyboard of a Olympia Report de Luxe typewriter. Several of the keys like the x, -, and / are in red to indicate that they auto-repeat.

View down onto the carriage of a Olympia Report de Luxe typewriter

Close up of a sales and service sticker on the hood of a Olympia Report de Luxe typewriter. In gray with gold lettering it reads "J&H Office Equipment, 119 E. Main | PH 587-7104 | Bozeman

Oblique view from the left side of a Olympia Report de Luxe typewriter. In the front left corner of the keyboard is a switch for setting and clearing tabs.

“Now listen to this. 
The gentle and soothing lullaby of a piece of machinery so perfect –”
—Frank Navasky, YOU’VE GOT MAIL (Warner Bros., 1998)

Close up of the line selector mechanism on a Olympia Report de Luxe typewriter

Silver paper support with a gray plastic extender sticking up out of the back of an Olympia Report de Luxe typewriter

Angle view from the front right corner of a Olympia Report de Luxe typewriter

View of the right side of a Olympia Report de Luxe typewriter at table height.

Close up of a model sticker on the lower right side of a Olympia Report de Luxe typewriter next to it's power cord. We see that it's listed as "typewriter model SKE" and that it uses 115V, 60Hz, 50 Watt power and is UL listed.

Plastic gearing in the ribbon cup area of a Olympia Report de Luxe typewriter

Rear view of a Olympia Report de Luxe typewriter with the words Olympia International imprinted on the white part of the main body.

View from the rear of a Olympia Report de Luxe typewriter toward the keyboard, of which we can only see two rows of keys

View down onto the typebasket of a Olympia Report de Luxe typewriter with the hood removed.

Close up of 9 of the gleaming slugs on a Olympia Report de Luxe typewriter with the foundry marks "12" | "66" in their middles.

Bottom of a Olympia Report de Luxe typewriter featuring a small window with the serial number, the typewriter's rubber feet, and a small sticker indicating the importer.

A small window in the bottom of the Olympia Report de Luxe typewriter shows the serial number stamped on the metal chassis beneath the plastic cover.

Distributor sticker on the bottom of a Olympia Report de Luxe typewriter indicating that it's "Distributed by Olympia USA, Inc., Box 22, Sommerville, NJ

Acquired 1938 Woodstock No. 5 Standard typewriter (Woodstock)
Serial Number: 8-12-512178E
Elite (12 CPI), 6 lines/inch, bichrome, keyset tabulator, typebar hood, 12" carriage, carriage shift, American keyboard, 42 keys, 84 characters, foundry marks: alpha: backwards "2 slash", numeric: "8", in black enamel with glass keys, manufactured in the U.S.A.
My first ever Woodstock. Acquired via thrift for $50 on 2026-05-08. Possibly a bit more expensive than it might have otherwise been, but the key rings are in stunning shape, and the work to polish them is easily worth several hundred in labor! The decals are also in exceptional condition. Aside from some cosmetic damage to the typebar hood, this machine is in exceptionally great cosmetic condition and will be even more so following a full polish of the body and the brights.

Quick initial work

  • Naturally it needs a new ribbon, but it’s got enough ink left for a quick typesample.
  • A fast dusting and a preliminary scrub of the carriage rails and a few other parts with isopropyl alcohol and it’s ready for some basic work. Primarily the return lever and the margin sets were very gummy, while the keylevers had some pretty good action without any attention. (Someone really loved this machine.)
  • The carriage return lever needed some forming so that it no longer scrapes on the typebar hood.
  • A quick cleaning of the slugs which were in reasonable shape. List of work to be done:
  • The tabulator needs some adjustment to work properly as the tab mechanism is sitting a bit high and causes the carriage to scrape.
  • It’s going to need a ring and cylinder adjustment so that it’s not damaging the platen anymore, though the platen is so hard that it needs replacement anyway.
  • The rubber feet are usable, but need replacement.
  • The space key also may need some timing attention, but perhaps the slow symptoms will disappear with a full cleaning?
  • The rulers (5!) are slightly out of adjustment.
  • Full clean, oil, and adjust A day’s worth of cleaning and some modest adjustments and this should be a fantastic little machine.

Interesting features

  • I love the fact that this has some interesting paper fingers. They don’t seem to be well-suited to index card work however.
  • The unique ribbon reverse mechanism (a small metal button) is adjustable on either side.
  • It doesn’t have an individual tab clear button, but, in lieu, has a clear all tabs lever.
  • I love the design of the ribbon color selector which requires pulling a spring-loaded button out to switch colors—no accidental color changes here.
  • Rather than a traditional “margin release” button it has a “line lock release”, but like the Olympia SG series, it only locks when typing characters, but will blow past the margins if using the spacebar.
  • Rather than a more common line space selector, this has a knurled knob that needs to be pulled out and set with a pin-type mechanism. This also means that the selector can’t accidentally change its setting for any reason.
  • The Woodstock No. 5 is an early carriage shift standard
  • The typebar hood is made of some sort of early plastic and slides onto the top of the machine. While it’s borne the brunt of most of the machine’s cosmetic damage, it is easy to remove for typing “naked”. It goes on quickly to help protect the internals from ambient dust.

According to the TWdB page for the Woodstock, the 8-12 prefix on the serial number indicates a 12″ carriage (the width of the rubber portion of the platen). There isn’t any extant detail to indicate what the suffix “E” in the serial number means, though one might presume the elite or 12 pitch typeface?

Historic Users of the Woodstock

Users of Woodstock typewriters included:

  • Robert Bloch
  • Howard Fast
  • Alger Hiss (1929 standard )
  • Sir Patrick Moore
  • J.C. Oldfield (editor of the Associated Press’s London bureau, 1930s)
  • Gordon Parks (“Can you dig it?”)

Woodstock manuals

Richard Polt has manuals for the Woodstock available on his site at: 

A frontal view of a Woodstock standard typewriter in black enamel sits on a black wooden bar next to an old fashioned glass and the several bottles of liquor.

An angle on the keyboard of a Woodstock typewriter keyboard. The silver keyrings and glass top keys gleam without any tarnish.

Type sample of a Woodstock No. 5 typewriter showing off it's standard elite-sized type in upper and lower case.

Acquired 1947 Underwood SS Rhythm Touch Standard Typewriter (Underwood Corporation)
Serial Number: 11-6139621
Underwood Pica typeface, 10 pitch, 6 lines/inch; bichrome, segment shift, American keyboard, 42 keys, 84 characters
in black crinkle paint with black plastic keys and Art Deco chrome trim
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
Acquired at Goodwill Southern California for $20.28 including tax on 2026-05-06. Needs a full clean, oil, and adjust, but not in generally bad shape. Two or three mechanical issues to sort out, but it’s got some new ink and a quick wipe down/dusting has helped immensely. 

I’m in love with the Art Deco chrome styling. This was manufactured sometime between January and June 1947.

Typewritten sample of a 1947 Underwood SS standard typewriter with layouts of the upper and lower case slugs as well as the machine details and the pangram "the quick red fox jumps over the lazy dog."

Acquired Dovetailed Wooden Card Index for 4 x 6" Index Cards
Exterior dimensions: 6 11/16 x 4 13/16 x 3 15/16"
Unknown manufacturer
Picked up at thrift for $2.39. What can I say? I’m a sucker for card index boxes…

I can’t make out the smudged black-stamped bottom of the box to determine the manufacturer who used a sphere and a triangle in their logo. 

Acquired 1962 Olympia SM7 Portable Typewriter (Olympia Werke A.G.)
Serial Number: 2161560
Italic Pica No. 31 typeface, tabulator, carriage shift, 88 characters

Acquired via thrift on April 10, 2026. It finally fills my itch to have an italic typeface for use in personal correspondence. It’s in spectacular starting condition though a bit gamey, but this should clean up nicely. It immediately needed a bit of forming on the carriage lock and a new ribbon, but it’s generally ready to be in the regular rotation. 

Front view of a 1962 Olympia SM7 typewriter sitting on a library card catalog next to a vase of flowers.

Type sample from a 1962 Olympia SM7 typewriter with a well-rounded italic typeface in 10 point pitch.

I watched the fascinating documentary Best of Enemies: Buckley vs. Vidal (Magnolia Pictures, 2015) last night. An hour and thirteen into the picture, William F. Buckley Jr., who is known to have used a Royal HH and an Olivetti Lettera 32, can be seen abusing what appears to be a Hermes 3000 portable typewriter.

William F. Buckley in a white shirt with a sweater over it and wearing his signature glasses begins a new line of writing on a Hermes 3000 typewriter

Bill Buckley typing on a Hermes 3000 typewriter at the end of a line.

Bill Buckley's fingers typing out an article on the mint green keys of a Hermes typewriter