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 #230099)

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:

Woodstock No. 5 (1920)

Woodstock and Woodstock Electrite (1926)