Typewriters | Chris Aldrich

Typed white index card with a few letter As with overcircles which reads: My custom 1949 Smith-Corona Clipper Typewriter is obviously a Los Ångeles Ångels baseball fån. It automatically places a tiny hålo over any å that it feels needs one. I can only imagine how well this machine might go over in the Åthletics head office. Go Ås!

Bulk Order of Typewriter Ribbon from Baco Ribbon & Supply Co.

Having surpassed the 10 typewriter mark in my collection, I felt it was time to invest in some more serious typewriter ribbon for the “fleet”. There are some purveyors charging in the range of $10-20 for typewriter ribbon (and yes! people do still sell and buy typewriter ribbon!) I’m pretty sure by buying from closer to the source that I could drop the price down significantly and potentially save the money toward repairs, new platens, or even other machines.

Naturally the first stop was Richard Polt’s site, where he lists a handful of purveyors. I’ve heard good things in general about Baco both from Richard and Joe Van Cleave as well as others in the past few months, so I took the plunge and ordered a full reel of 660 yards of nylon black/red typewriter ribbon for $65. It should keep all my machines inked for quite a while.

Given that the typical standard/universal spool will accommodate 16 yards, this should be 41.25 spools. This also brings the price down to a far more economical $1.60 per spool versus the much higher level others are charging, particularly since I generally self-wind my own ribbon onto original metal spools and don’t need the additional plastic waste. It also has the added benefit of supporting the efforts of Charlene Oesch until she decides to retire.

If you’re in the market, here are the basic details to call and place an order (she specifically doesn’t have and doesn’t want a website), but she’s definitely still in business, carrying on in the tradition of her father since at least 1949:

Baco Ribbon & Supply Co.

Charlene Oesch

1521 Carman Road
Ballwin, MO 63021 United States
bacoribbon@sbcglobal.net
+1 (314) 835-9300
+1 (536) 394-5475 (fax)

Baco takes both credit card and PayPal and ships within about a day via USPS in the United States.

Current offerings/pricing (subject to change):

660 yards (full reel) of nylon ribbon in black or black/red for $65
330 yards (half reel) of nylon ribbon in black or black/red for $45
550 yards of silk ribbon in black or black/red for $220
295 yards of cotton in black or black/red for $75

With some lead time, she can do other colors if necessary, though she typically doesn’t keep those in stock all the time according to our conversation today. She has the option to pretty easily do blue, green, and purple in single colored reels.

I could be in for some blue/green or purple/green ribbon, which I imagine she could pull off if anyone wanted to go in on a reel or so to make it worth the time and effort to set it up. Let me know if you’re interested. Similarly if someone wanted to split an order for silk, I could be game for that too.

Have you tried other manufacturers? Who is your favorite bulk ribbon supplier?

Now I’m off to find some grommets and a custom pair of pliers for them…

A Small Brother Charger 11 Repair Surgery

I spent some time today doing surgery on my Brother Charger 11 Correction typewriter. It was quite relaxing to tinker around for a bit and appreciate the sparse, but clever and solid internals of this late model JP-1 machine that the serial number dates to January 1985.

I managed to clean out a lot of white somewhat sticky cruft, ostensibly from the correction ribbon this machine once had. I initially thought it would all blow out quickly with canned air, but it really needed some careful work with my typewriter brush and some Q-tips. The spots on the still supple rubber platen and rollers came off pretty quickly with some rubbing alcohol.

I quickly found the re-connected the spring that was preventing the margin release from working properly. I then tracked down the issue I was seeing with the vibrator assembly. It turns out someone had worked on this before and neglected to replace two small screws and nuts to hold the assembly down to the frame and at the appropriate distance from the platen. Without them it just sort of floats around between the basket and the platen. I’ll have to pick up a pair of them at the hardware store to be able to reattach it and then adjust it to the proper distance from the platen. Hopefully the rest of that assembly will operate properly once attached, particularly the bichrome lever which seems somewhat flimsy.

Beyond this the only outstanding thing I see, besides adding a new ribbon, is that the end of the backspace assembly isn’t attached to anything. It ends in a small question mark-like but very sturdy hook which I presume would have attached to either a spring or a metal wire, but I’m going to need to consult either another machine or find a service manual which details what the assembly is supposed to look like. If anyone has a helpful photo of the bottom of their Charger 11 from that hook to the escapement assembly, that would be most helpful.

The last couple of tweaks should have this back in perfectly serviced operating order. Its almost as clean and new as when it rolled off the assembly line 39 years and 4 months ago.

I received this machine on March 12th and just realized that I never really took any photos of it or played around with it at the time in part because that’s the day my car’s engine died. I’ll see what I can do to finish this up soon, so that I can do a proper acquisition post and include some photos of the exterior as well as a proper typeface sample.

A wooden library card catalog on which sits a 1949 Royal Quiet De Luxe Typewriter next to a crystal old fashioned glass and a fifth of Glenmorangie in a scotch bottle. To one side is a blue vase with small pink roses.

I’ve seen many references comparing the use of typewriters in an overstimulating technology space to the slow food movement. Since one regularly pairs wine with their meals, it only seems right to extend the typewriter analogy to liquor as well. Today, I’m pairing this smooth 10 year single malt Glenmorangie Scotch with the 1949 Royal Quiet De Luxe.

Surely Hemingway would approve?

Type-o-sphere, what are you pairing with your typewriter today?

White index card with the following quote typed onto it in blue elite typeface:
If I had to keep only one typewriter, if I had to get rid of them all and only had one left... There is a version of this Smith-Corona which is the the Silent Smith-Corona. [...] Somewhere around whenever they started making this, the Smith Corona Silent and various other models that have the same silhouette. The rise on the keys is just almost perfect—going from an N to a Y requires almost nothing. The size of the type is not too big and not too small. But listen to the solidity of the action [types]. This is a solid, solid piece of machine. That's got beautiful highlights like the stripes here and there. The colors are good. I love the green keys. I would probably say that this with a good case would be the one typewriter I would take. And that's why it's kinda out [on my desk] right now. I rotate this one into use an awful lot. [He types: clack, clack] I confess. [clack, clack again as he types.]
—Tom Hanks, in California Typewriter, 2016

Typewriter Backing Sheets for Index Cards

If you’re doing a lot of typing on index cards for your zettelkasten, recipes, or other uses, this may be a useful typewriter hack:

Yellowed catalog page with photos of 5 portable typewriters labeled A-E with blocks of corresponding text below to describe them all and provide their list prices. The headline over the description reads: PORTABLE TYPEWRITERS.. NEW post-war models

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.

A blue library book charge card with space for the book title at the top and fields for date and issued to below. Typewritten, it reads: Polt, Richard The Typewriter Revolution: A Typist's Companion for the 21st Century Countryman Press, Woodstock, VT, 2015 Under DATE column it reads: 2024-04-29 Under ISSUED TO column it reads Intro, ch1, ch2 At the bottom in small blue type original to the card is the ordering information: BRO DART CAT. No. 23-115 PRINTED IN USA

Some how it felt sacrilegious to post it to Goodreads.com and not to type my status update for Richard Polt’s poetic paean to typewriters.