As I’m watching the Golden Globes, it’s painfully obvious that it is missing some important analog representation. In an effort to remedy the error, shall we collect the nominations for Best Typewriter in a Movie or Television Series? (The only requirement for nomination is that the movie or television show was released in the 2025 calendar year. Bonus points if you include a photo of the typewriter from the show with your nomination.)
I’ll start with a first nominee:
The 1930s Juwel 3 from the Netflix series WEDNESDAY.
New typewriter enthusiasts will very often post to Reddit, one of the Facebook typewriter groups or other similar fora, something along the lines of: “I spotted this typewriter at an antique store. Good condition to buy?” and include a picture of some generic typewriter.
It bears mentioning and thoroughly understanding that even an expert typewriter collector or professional repair person can only tell very little of the condition of a typewriter by photos. Does it look generally clean? Are the decals in tact? Does the segment look clean (a vague proxy for the potential condition of the internals)? Is anything obvious missing (knobs, return lever, keys)? Does it look cared for or has it been neglected in a barn for half a century? If it has a case, how beat up, dirty, and water-stained is it?
Most modern typewriters made after 1930 in unknown condition are worth about $5-25 and they peak at about $500 when purchased from a solid repair shop unless some Herculean additional restoration has taken place, they’ve got a rarer typeface, or are inherently actually rare. Hint: unless it’s a pro repair shop or very high end collector with lots of experience, don’t trust anyone saying that a typewriter is “rare”—run the other direction. Run faster if they say it “works, but just needs a new ribbon” as—even at the most expensive—new ribbon is only $15 and their “rare” $600+ machine should have fresh, wet ribbon. The rule of thumb I use is that almost no one online selling a typewriter knows anything about it, including if it actually works. Worse, they’ve probably priced it at professional repair shop prices because they don’t know that in the secondary typewriter market: condition is king.
The least experienced typist will know far more about the condition of a machine by putting their hands on it and trying it out. Does it generally work? Does the carriage move the full length of its travel? Can you set the margins at the extremes and space reliably from one end to another? Does it skip? Is the inside clean or full of decades of dried oil, dust, correction tape, white-out splatter, and eraser crumbs? Does the margin release work? Does it backspace properly? When typing “HHHhhhHHH” are the letters all printed well and on the same baseline?
Presumably a typewriter at an antique store will meet these minimum conditions (though be aware that many don’t as their proprietors have no idea about typewriters other than that if they wait long enough, some sucker will spend $150 on almost anything). They’ve done the work of finding a machine that (barely) works, housing it, and presenting it to the public for sale. This time and effort is worth something to the beginning typewriter enthusiast, but worth much, much less to the longer term practiced collector.
If everything is present and at least generally limping along, you’ve got yourself a $30 typewriter. Most people can spend a few hours watching YouTube videos and then manage to clean and lubricate a typewriter to get it functioning reasonably. You can always learn to do the adjustments from YouTube videos. (Or just take it to a typewriter repair shop and fork over $200-400 to get things squared.)
If you’re getting into collecting, you’ll make some useful mistakes by overpaying in the beginning and those mistakes will teach you a lot.
Maybe you’re a tinkerer and looking for a project? If so, then find the cheapest machine you can get your hands on (maybe a Royal KMM for $9 at thrift) and work your way through a home study course.
Otherwise, if you’re just buying one or two machines to use—by far—the best value you’ll find is to purchase a cleaned, oiled, and well-adjusted machine from a repair shop. Sure it might cost $350-600, but what you’ll save in time, effort, heartache, searching, repair, etc. will more than outweigh the difference. Additionally you’ll have a range of machines to choose from aesthetically and you can test out their feel to find something that works best for you.
Or, you could buy a reasonable machine like the one typically asked about for $40-70 and find out it needs cleaning, oiling, and adjusting and potentially a few repairs. The repair tab might run you an additional $450. Is it worth it when a repair shop would have sold you the same, a very similar, or an even better machine in excellent condition for $350? It also doesn’t take much work to realize the god-send that a properly packaged and shipped typewriter is worth.
Why Context is Queen
Remember in asking about the cost and value/worth of a typewriter, you’re actually attempting to maximize a wide variety of unstated variables including, but not limited to:
upfront price and value,
information about the current state of the market,
information/knowledge about the machine itself, its history, desirability/popularity, and how often it’s encountered in the wild,
information about how to clean it,
information about oiling it,
information about adjusting,
information about repairing it,
cost and availability of tools and repair parts,
and the time involved for both learning and doing all of the above.
The more time you’ve spent learning and doing all of these, the better “deals” you’ll find, but gaining this expertise is going to cost you a few years of life. What is all this “worth” when you just want to type on a machine that actually works as well as it was meant to?
Most of the prognostication you’ll find in online typewriter fora will be generally useless to you because you’re not readily aware of the context and background of the respondents with respect to all of the variables above. Similarly they’re working with no context about you, your situation, where you live, what’s available in your area, your level of typewriter knowledge, your aesthetic, or your budget. You don’t know what you don’t know. At the end of the day, you’re assuredly just as well off to use a bit of your intuition and putting your hands on a machine and trying it out. Then ask: “What is it worth to you?”
If you find yourself asking this question online, but you’re really asking: “Is this $50 typewriter highway robbery?”, the answer is generally: “no”.
Someone recently mentioned to me that the small, portable 1,000 index card capacity cardboard box with lid that they use as a zettelkasten felt more like it was for deep storage rather than daily use. Perhaps it’s a result of the fact that this is how most people have been using these cheaper cardboard boxes for the last 30+ years? They said they’d prefer to have a drawer or a box with an attached lid.
It dawns on me that I’ve never mentioned one of the great affordances of many of the older card index cabinets is that they’re designed to be able to completely remove one or more drawers at a time and use at your desk. On an almost daily basis, I pull out at least one drawer from my cabinet and place it on my desk and it allows me to actively work with collections of over 7,000 cards at a time. This means that while the cabinet itself may seem like deep or “cold” storage, it’s really ongoing active storage that I can quickly and easily interact with depending on the range of projects I may be dealing with on a given day. Working on a different project for a bit? Put one drawer away and pull another…
Several of my cabinets have not only pull handles on the front of the drawers, but also have cut-out handles in the rear to be able to easily pull them out and move them around. This feature was also the reason many cabinets also had card rods. The cards could be physically held into the drawers to prevent the user from accidentally tipping the drawer and loosing all the cards into a random pile on the floor. Robert Pirsig describes a sad affair similar to this in his book Lila: An Inquiry into Morals (Bantam Books, 1991).
Of course at the end of the day I can quickly slot the drawer right back into the cabinet for that clean desk look. And because today is the one year anniversary of the Eaton Fire, I’ll mention that it’s also pretty easy to pull a few of your favorite drawers out of the filing cabinet for fleeing your home office, evacuating your town, and being able to work for four months remotely. (Just remember to seat belt those drawers into the back seat if you don’t have card rods!)
Dan Allosso has been hosting a regular book club since Autumn 2021, centered around sense making, note taking, and topics like economics, history, sociology, and anthropology. (See our list of past books to get an idea of topic coverage.) Our next iteration over the coming month or so will focus on Steven Pinker’s most recent book on knowledge:
The first session will be on Saturday, January 10, 2026, and will recur weekly from 8:00 AM – 10:00 Pacific. Our meetings are welcoming and casual conversations over Zoom with the optional beverage of your choice. We’ll cover the first three chapters in the first meeting and the book will likely consume three meetings in all over the coming month.
To join and get access to the Zoom links and the shared Obsidian vault we use for notes and community communication, ping Dan Allosso with your email address.
The internet is now rife with what I call “zettelkasten method one pagers” that describe what many people rightly (or very often wrongly) think that Niklas Luhmann’s zettelkasten method entails.
While doing some research about Luhmann’s numbering system’s antecedents, I recently came across a “one pager” (typescript) written by Luhmann himself in the form of some lecture notes from 1968 that folks may appreciate.
Seemingly everyone with a blog that ran across the idea of Zettelkasten in the last decade or so wrote up their own description of what it is. If you know of other blog posts about zettelkasten, let me know for my collection.
Of special note to those who are still under the misapprehension that Luhmann “invented the zettelkasten”, in the closing section of his 1968 notes he writes “In conclusion: from personal experience, others work differently” by which one understands that he’s aware of others who use similar systems and admits that they’re all idiosyncratic to their individual users. I would suspect that he gave this lecture while at Sozialforschungsstelle an der Universität Münster (Social Research Centre of the University of Münster) to students about how to arrange and do their own sociology research work.
Not surprisingly, I don’t always file away my index cards as quickly as I probably ought to. Every now and then I go through my deck of unfiled cards and try to sort them into my card index/zettelkasten. The end of the year seems like a pretty good time to clear the decks.
Because I haven’t documented some of this portion of my process before, I thought I’d take a few photos of my C-Line document sorter which I use to do a fast sort of cards before filing into my card index. I bought it a while back from Brodart Library supplies and it comes in quite handy for sorting and filing documents. It’s got sections for sorting by alphabet, days of a month, months of the year, days of the week, and numbers up to 30,000 (which I primarily co-opt for Dewey Decimal sorting). The days of the month and month sections come in handy for use with my Memindex work, and the months of the year are useful for sorting receipts for expenses and at tax preparation time. In all, it’s fairly flexible analog office tool.
As I go through my stack of index cards, I use a Mitsubishi No. 772 pencil (the vermillion side) to underline topics for filing and cross-referencing purposes. This allows me to cross-index topics quickly as well.
I went through several hundred cards the other day and only had about 150-200 left for filing into the commonplace book section of my card index. Most of these cards were from 2025, but some dated into 2024 with a handful from as far back as 2023.
Over the coming days, I’m hoping to finish cleaning up some of the notes from this year’s reading work.
Generally, Exacompta cards are the closest in price per square foot to the nicer notebooks while most 4 x 6 inch index cards are comparatively much cheaper (even if you’re only writing on one side).
With no advance notice or apparent fanfare, Brodart, one of the major library supplies and furnishing companies in the United States, has quit manufacturing, distributing, and selling library card catalogs and library charging trays. This seems sad news for analog library enthusiasts coming just two days after Melvil Dewey’s 174th birthday on December 10th.
I’ve got word in for specific details about end dates for manufacturing and the last sales on some of these products. Apparently the last purchase of charging trays was someone wiping out their stock of 50 remaining units in the last two weeks.
Dr. Michael Miller, a retired researcher at RAND, has been teaching upper level undergraduate/graduate level math courses for fun at UCLA Extension for over 50 years. This winter, he’ll be introducing hypercomplex numbers to those interested in abstract math: Fundamentals Of Hypercomplex Numbers.
His courses are thorough and rigorous, but geared toward lifelong learners and beginners in abstract mathematics to allow people better entry points into higher level mathematics. His classes are interesting and relatively informal, and most students who take one usually stay on for future courses. The vast majority of students in the class (from 16-90+ years old) take his classes for fun and regular exposure to mathematical thought, though there is an option to take it for a grade if you like. There are generally no prerequisites for his classes, and he makes an effort to meet the students at their current level of sophistication. Some background in calculus and linear algebra will be useful going into this particular topic.
If you’re in the Los Angeles area (there are regular commuters joining from as far out as Irvine, Ventura County and even Riverside) and interested in joining a group of dedicated hobbyist and professional mathematicians, engineers, physicists, and others from all walks of life (I’ve seen actors, directors, doctors, artists, poets, retirees, and even house-husbands in his classes), his class starts on January 6th at UCLA on Tuesday nights from 7-10PM.
If you’re unsure of what you’re getting into, I recommend visiting on the first class to consider joining us for the Winter quarter. Sadly, this is an in-person course. There isn’t an option to take this remotely or via streaming, and he doesn’t typically record his lectures. I hope to see all the Southern California math fans next month!
Course Description
A survey of those systems of numbers that can be constructed by adding “imaginary units” to the real numbers. The simplest and most familiar example is the two-dimensional system of complex numbers. Much less familiar, but equally fascinating, are the systems of quaternions and Cayley numbers, of dimensions four and eight, respectively. These “algebras” still enable meaningful notions of addition, multiplication, and division, but only at a price: the loss of commutativity and (in the case of Cayley numbers) associativity. Things get even more bizarre when sedenions (dimension 16) and trigintaduonions (dimension 32) are brought into play. The latter part of the course is devoted to the theorems of Hurwitz and Frobenius on the existence of suitably behaved division algebras over the real numbers.
The course should appeal to those seeking a better understanding of the arithmetical underpinnings of our number system.
Prerequisites: advanced calculus and linear algebra
January 6 – March 17
Tuesday 7:00PM – 10:00PM PT
REG# 407060
Fee: $450.00
If you’ve never joined the class before (Dr. Miller has been teaching these for 53 years and some of us have been with him for nearly that long; I’m starting into my 20th year personally), I’ve written up some tips and hints.
In preparing for some of my end-of-the-year review from my card index, I thought it would be interesting to choose the “Best Note of the Year”. Then it thought it might be worth choosing a “Best Insight”, “Most Surprising Note”, and a “Best Folgezettel” as well.
And if you’re going to give out an award, it should involve a trophy of some sort, right?!? So naturally I went out and picked up a “4 x 6 inch index card” made out of India Black Granite that I plan on engraving with the Note of the Year. At 3/8ths of an inch thick, it is by a large stretch the thickest index card I have in my zettelkasten.
As it may be an interesting end-of-year review practice, I thought I would open up the “competition” to others who’d like to participate. Are there other categories one should enter cards for consideration?
“Like a jam session for people who like typewriters. You had unions do sit-ins and hippies do be-ins, so I thought, ‘We’ll do a type-in.’”
—Michael McGettigan, 56, bike shop owner who coined the phrase
With attendees from 8 months old to over 80, our Spring type-in was so successful, we’re hosting another one before the end of the year. Bringing your own typewriter(s) and related ephemera is definitely encouraged, but is entirely optional.
2 blocks West of Lake Avenue, which has both East and Westbound exits off of the 210 Freeway.
We’ll be meeting upstairs on the second floor. Parking available behind the bookstore as well as on surrounding streets. There is a handicapped accessible ramp (from the parking lot in rear) and entrance(s) with an elevator to the second floor as well. (Hint: this is also available for those bringing their collections of standard typewriters.)
What is a Type-in?
Type-ins are community-based, family friendly events at which typewriter enthusiasts share their love for the analog art of putting ink onto paper with mechanical marvels of the late 19th through 20th centuries. To do this they bring one or more manual typewriters and their knowledge and love of the machines to share with the community. New friends share stories, history, repair tips, working methods, and other typewriterly ephemera. Typists of all ages and levels of ability are welcome.
Typewriters optional
We definitely encourage those without their own machines to attend. With some luck and the kindness of new friends, you should be able to try out a variety of machines which are present in an effort to decide what styles and feel you might consider for purchasing one of your own one day (or for the upcoming holidays). Please kindly ask the owners’ permission before trying a machine out. If you’ve got multiple typewriters, feel free to bring an extra for a friend or two. Our current record for the attendee bringing the most typewriters is 6.
Activities during the afternoon
Below is a list of activities we might try based on the interests of the attendees:
Basic typewriter demonstrations covering: use, maintenance, and repair; how to find/buy typewriters, how to date the year of manufacture of your machine, etc.,
Type up your letter to Santa
The holidays are coming, maybe you could type up some holiday cards?
Speed typing contest
Writing! (naturally)
poetry competition
letter and postcard writing; bring some stationery/envelopes/stamps to write letters to friends & loved ones
Typing prompts for those who need inspiration for writing
Typewriter Art – composing visual pictures using ink on paper
Cadavre Exquis – a dedicated typewriter with paper is set up for participants to compose and write a group story, each taking turns throughout the event at writing one sentence at a time.
Impromptu lightning talks of 3-5 minutes on topics like “how to buy a typewriter”, “how to get into home typewriter repair”, “how to work a typewriter into your daily writing routine”, “how to join the Typosphere” etc.
Participants are encouraged to type up their experiences of the event for posting to their personal websites (aka the Typosphere).
Meet new pen pals to start exchanging letters via typewriter and post
Selfies with the typewriter mural on the front of the bookstore.
Typewriter repair advice: Have a broken machine and not sure what’s wrong? Get some advice from the community.
Bring and share your own ideas… What do you use your typewriter for? (Paul Sheldon, if you’re reading this, you can only bring your Smith-Corona, you CANNOT bring your Royal Ten.)
Vroman’s Bookstore is a Pasadena institution and SoCal’s oldest indie bookstore since 1894 (almost as old as the invention of the typewriter itself!) While you’re visiting, be sure to check out not only their book selection, but their gifts and cards; the wide array of notebooks, stationery items and their fantastic fountain pen counter; and their children’s section. Downstairs stop by their excellent wine bar or Tepito Coffee Shop which will be open for snacks and beverages throughout the day.
Looking for typewriter-related books as holiday gifts and stocking stuffers while you’re there? Ask for some of the following:
The Typewriter Revolution: A Typist’s Companion for the 21st Century by Richard Polt (Countryman Press, 2015)
Uncommon Type: Some Stories by Tom Hanks (Knopf, 2017)
Olivetti by Allie Millington (Feiwel & Friends, 2024)
Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin (Simon & Schuster, 2003) as well as other follow up books in the series
Typewriter Beach: A Novel by Meg Waite Clayton (Harper, July 2025)
Yankees, Typewriters, Scandals, and Cooperstown: A Baseball Memoir by Bill Madden (Triumph, April 2025)
Who’s ready for a type-in?!?
RSVP & Questions
Our meeting space, which is frequently used for author talks and book signings, should be adequate, but please RSVP (with your expected number of typewriters) so we can plan for the appropriate amount of tables and chairs.
Questions? Media queries? Contact: ChrisAldrich@jhu.edu
It’s really an over-asked question: What do you use your typewriter for?. (tl;dr: writing). To make things more interesting and entertaining in the middle of the week, let’s turn it on its ear and ask only for the wrong answers today.
Whether it’s use in food preparation:
Throw a slab of steak into the segment and pound away for a bit until well tenderized. Then insert into oven at 400 degrees F until it’s medium rare and you’ve got some excellent typebar grill marks.
I noticed that just like Dustin Hoffman as Carl Bernstein in All the President’s Men, Chevy Chase portraying the titular Fletch (Universal Pictures, 1985) has a Royal HH typewriter not only at his Santa Monica apartment, but he also has a matching one at his office at the Los Angeles Globe.
Fletch’s Apartment Office
Interesting to note that Fletch’s home office typewriter has a POLICE sticker on it…This still shot from Fletch’s office at home may be my new Zoom background shot.
Fletch’s Office at the Los Angeles Globe
At the far left of the desk, we see the tell-tale Royal Logo on a brown standard typewriter.
Meanwhile, the poor sap reporter that sits next to Fletch is left pounding away on an Underwood TouchMaster 5.
It’s a very common complaint/worry/issue when people new to the typewriter world get their first machine and realize that as they’re typing, their typewriter slowly moves or “walks” across the work surface upon which they’re typing. It’s often easy enough to just move it back to center and continue on, but when you’re composing something and you’re in the zone, it’s an added niggling distraction that many who use typewriters were hoping to get away from in the first place. Often this issue is worse with some of the later model electrics (I’m looking at you Smith-Corona Electras) which have a motorized auto return function which in combination with carriage inertia can cause one’s typewriter almost to jump across a desk. It might also be an issue if you’re using a 40 pound standard machine on a writing drawer on your mid-century tanker desk and the machine tips off onto the floor, though I’ve yet to hear someone complain of this problem.
So we’re presented with the question of how to remedy this typewriter “walking” issue? Fortunately there are a handful of common and inexpensive remedies.
New Rubber Feet
The primary reason we see this walking issue now and it wasn’t seen in the past is that the rubber feet of vintage and antique typewriters have hardened over time. As a result, the feet on the typewriter don’t have the grippy-ness they originally did. Their almost plastic-like current form allows the machine to slide across the table with the force applied to the typewriter as one types as well as the use of the return lever to reset the carriage at the end of a line. This makes for an easy fix by replacing the rubber feet on one’s typewriter.
Old feet and spacers versus new feet and spacers.
Because the original manufacturers aren’t making new stock any more, replacement can take many forms which are outlined below.
Rubber replacements
There are a handful of repair companies and hobbyists who have created molds and pour new rubber feet for a variety of makes and models. These are generally excellent and will give your machine another half century or more additional life. Prices for replacements can often be found in the $15-50 range.
3-D printed replacements
With the advent of small and inexpensive 3-D printers, many hobbyists will replace their old, hardened, and cracked or disintegrating rubber feet with newly printed ones. While these often provide a lot more grip than the ones they’re replacing, they may not be quite as solid as rubber replacements. Prices for replacements can often be found in the $20-60 range.
Hardware store
Depending on the shape and size of your typewriter feet, you may find that the local hardware store might have rubber pieces designed for other uses which will work with your particular machine. This option often relies on some research, hunting around, and sometimes some craftiness to get the pieces made for a different application to work with your typewriter. While it may only be an option in 5-10% of cases, its usually fairly inexpensive in comparison to other options.
In addition to the above, I’ve seen people use self-adhesive rubberized sheets cut to size and attached to the old feet.
Mats & Pads
Often less expensive than new rubber feet are any number of mats and pads, usually meant for other purposes, but which can be repurposed for use with your typewriter.
Machine Pads
In the mid-century several companies made machine pads specifically for typewriters and other machines. While some vintage or new old stock (NOS) versions may still be available for sale online or in antique stores, they’re often in mediocre shape at best as age and exposure will have either worn them down or stiffened them up. The completist collector may look for and attempt to use these, but newer alternate versions are likely of much higher quality.
An original Unda-Wunda machine pad aged past its useful life.
Commercial Typewriter Pads
A few small typewriter repair companies and hobbyists make small typewriter pads out of carpeting with rubberized backing which will dramatically cut down on the dance your typewriter tries to clack out on your desktop. These options often run in the $20-40 range.
There are a variety of additional pads that can be used to help keep your typewriter in place. These include pads and mats made out of wool, felt, or even carpet. Ideally you’ll want something in the 1/4 – 1/2 inch thickness range and large enough to cover the footprint of your specific typewriter.
Because they were designed for ironing, some wool mats can be found in sizes larger than the typical typewriter. While some might eschew these larger sizes, they can come in handy for larger footprint standard typewriters. Additionally, these wider mats can be used to create a larger footprint around your typewriter which can help serve as a reminder not to place your favorite beverage next to your machine and accidentally have the carriage tip it over onto your desk either as you type or when your execute a return after ill-advisedly placing your glass right next to your carriage.
On smooth surfaces, these mats can not only reduce walking, but for heavier standard machines, they can also be useful for more easily moving typewriters around if you’re switching between the typewriter and your laptop computer.
I’ve personally got 4 or 5 of the Zomoneti Wool pads around the house and love them. They were recommended to me by Gerren Balch of The HotRod Typewriter Co., an experienced typewriter mechanic who may be better known for his hot rod paint jobs on typewriter bodies. He told me he’s also got several including one he uses to prevent machines in his shop from being scratched up as he’s flipping them around and wrenching on them. He loves the fact that they’ll also soak up liquids as he’s degreasing them to help prevent mess. You’ll see them regularly in his YouTube videos.
A local carpet store might give or sell you a square sample of carpet that would suffice as a pad and in combination with some shelf liner (see below), you’ll have roughly the same functionality in a DIY product that will work as well as a more expensive commercial option. Most might opt for a low pile carpet for this application, but, given the wide variety of types and colors, who would fault you for using an orange shag carpet to match up with your avocado green 1960 Aztec 500?
Another potential inexpensive method is to use oversized mouse pads if you can find them. I’ve also heard people upcycle items like computer notebook cases.
Another off-label mat that works well for typewriters are the thin, non-slip yoga mats. These come in a variety of colors and materials and work very well for keeping your typewriter in one place. Because of their size and material, they’re usually very easy to cut down from one long roll into several individual mats.
They’re often recommended by typewriter collector and restorer James Grooms who features them in many of his typewriter galleries on the typewriter database. He also suggests picking them up at thrift stores for pennies on the dollar.
Be aware that thicker and spongier yoga mats exist and will work with typewriters, but colloquially I’ve heard that most prefer the thinner ones.
Drawer and Shelf Liner
Thin rubber mats that are sold as drawer or shelf liner or non-slip rug or carpet padding can be cut down from larger sizes and repurposed as typewriter mats to prevent them from slipping around during use.
The drawback here is that some of them can be easily discolored in short spans of time. In my experience, some can also fuse with varnished wood surfaces, particularly when used with heavier standard typewriters, so keep this in mind, particularly if you’re using them on vintage furniture as display pieces when you’re not typing on them.
Cutting down an 8×10 foot non-slip pad will make lots of typewriter mats. This sort of shelf liner is great for stopping movement, but won’t do much for sound.
Some people will use these in combination with other carpet or wool mats mentioned above for a prettier but still practical and economical result.
Custom Typewriter Mats
Naturally one could use the examples above to custom make their own typewriter mats. I was always impressed at Tom Hanks’ ingenious custom typewriter covers/mats which served not only to prevent his machines from walking, but also doubled as covers to keep the dust out while simultaneously looking very sharp on a machine being displayed on a shelf, in a book case, or even sitting on your office’s credenza or library card catalog.
The “Singing” Typewriter
There’s another frequently mentioned down side of typewriters that users and their families aren’t big fans of: the noise.
While a typewriter is always going to make some sound, there are a variety of things one can do to minimize it. Before we delve into some of the potential solutions, let’s discuss a few of the reasons why your vintage or antique typewriter can be louder than it was right out of the factory.
The Noise Sources
The Ring and Cylinder and the Platen
First, the majority of the classic clacking sound you hear from typewriters is a result of the metal typebars hammering against the ring (or anvil) on the front of the segment just below the typing point. On older typewriters, you can often see the wear of the metal from years of this action occurring millions of times. This wear can also be an indicator of how heavily a typewriter was used in its lifetime.
Based on the metal wear pattern you can almost guess which keys were hit the most frequently on this nearly 100 year old typewriter.
While the majority of the typebar’s momentum is absorbed by the ring, some of the energy is reserved for the typebar to flex slightly and the slug to continue travelling forward where it’s meant to just “kiss” the ribbon and press the ribbon against the paper and then the rubbery-ness of platen absorbs the remainder of the blow. On a well-adjusted typewriter, with the typebar pressed fully forward, it should still be far enough from the platen to allow a sheet of paper to be easily slid between the slug and a backing sheet.
Depending on the rubber and manufacturing processes used, the average life of the rubber on a platen is somewhere around 30-40 years. Of course on most vintage or older typewriters, the platen which was originally specified somewhere between a durometer rating of a soft, but supple 85 and 92 is now as hard as a rock. As a result, when the slug strikes it, it’s going to be far louder than it would be for a new platen. This also means that for new typewriters manufactured in the 1980s or even typewriters from the 40s and 50s that had their platens replaced as late as the 1980s are pretty much guaranteed to have hardened platens. The end result is more noise.
As platens age, they also shrink which generally means the finely tuned ring and cylinder adjustment done at the factory (or by your local typewriter repair person) is going to be off. This generally means that the slug doesn’t hit the platen as it was meant to which also means that you’ll often see some of the smaller characters like underlines, commas, and periods piercing through your paper as you type. Age and poor alignment means that instead of the type slug kissing the ribbon it smashes the ribbon, blasts through the paper, and clangs against the hardened platen.
Felt and foam padding
To assist in dampening sound both within the typewriter as well as transference to the surroundings, many typewriters from the 1930s onward had sections of industrial padding, felt, or foam glued into the main body panels. Some of the older padding as seen in the 5 Series Smith-Corona portables holds up relatively well while the foam in machines like the Royal FP and the Futura 800 or even the IBM Selectrics has disintegrated into dust and can make a terrible mess as well as be difficult to clean out. On some machines it has picked up a dreadful smell and needs to be replaced.
Gromets and Rubber Washers
Another, albeit smaller, source of noise in typewriters is the movement and potential rattling of metal body pieces. As a result, you’ll often see small rubber grommets on body panels (common in some of the later Remington Standards) or thin rubber gaskets between the screws and body panels (this is very common on late 1950s Smith-Coronas). Many 60s and 70s typewriters with plastic or thin metal hoods will be held in place by a post which inserts into rubber grommets on either side of the ribbon cups. This makes them easier to take off and replace, but also prevents vibrations from transferring.
The gray rubber grommet that holds the hood onto a Brother Charger 11
Desk Surfaces and Reflected Noise
Of course all these sources of noise are frequently not only heard directly from their source, but the energy of the sound waves is bounced off of the hard desk and writing surfaces upon which one’s typewriter is placed for use. In contemporaneous typewriter usage at mid-century, most were situated on wooden or rubber-like linoleum-covered tanker desks which don’t exist in modern office spaces anymore. This means that your bare metal, glass, or other hard surfaced-desk is reflecting all of the noise from the typewriter right back up at you and amplifying the noise the machine is making.
The Noise Solutions
Now that we’ve looked at most of the noise sources associated with a typewriter, let’s look at some various means of minimizing them.
The quickest, easiest, and one of the least expensive noise dampening solutions is to use a typewriter mat of one of the sorts described in the section on “walking typewriters”. Felted wool and yoga mats are considered the best. In addition to helping keep typewriters in one place, they can help to absorb quite a lot of the sound as well as prevent reflection of the sound off of the desktop. Their diverse functionality and the ability to accessorize a desk and a typewriter make them incredibly useful accessories.
Colloquially, I’ve heard people say that this sound dampening method is even better than replacing the internal felt or foam on the internal body panels, which is another relatively inexpensive method of sound dampening.
Using 3-5mm felt from your local hobby store is a simple replacement for old felt and foam which can frequently hold unpleasant smells. Others frequently suggest Ethylene-vinyl acetate foam sometimes more commonly called EVA foam which is used in a variety of common applications from shoes, athletic equipment, yoga mats, toys, packaging, furniture, seating, and even cosplay costumes. Others may also suggest materials like neoprene which is commonly used to make wet suits. Most all of these are relatively easy to find in a variety of fabric, foam, and hobby stores as well as online stores. One can use paper patterns cut out to follow the form of the typewriter panels and then trace the pattern onto the material and then cut it out. A variety of glues like rubber cement can be easily used to secure this new noise dampening material.
For rubber grommets and washers, these can often be replaced by a quick trip to the hardware store and browsing through the hardware or plumbing sections. Online purveyors like Grainger and McMaster-Carr often have huge selections which will allow one a lot more flexibility to more closely specify sizes and thicknesses. Many hardware stores will also have grab-bag choices that include a variety of sizes of rubber parts so that you can easily pick and choose the appropriate size parts for your particular typewriter.
Finally, another very good means of minimizing the noise of your typewriter is to re-cover the platen. Going from a rock hard platen back into a lower durometer rating will help to quiet your machine and give it a more lux typing feel at the same time. Few people do it because it can run about $100 plus shipping, but it really improves your typing experience and is well worth the effort. Because the companies that do this work also do rollers, be sure to spend the few extra dollars to resurface your carriage rollers to have better grip when threading your paper.
Several companies offer platen re-covering and related services including:
J.J. Short Associates, Inc. for Typewriter Platens, Feed Rollers, Bail Rollers, Finger Rollers, and Power Rollers. A platen and feed rollers can run about $100-120 plus shipping, but call or email them for a quote for your specific machine(s)
Remember that if you have your platen re-covered you will want to properly re-adjust your typewriter to get the proper ring and cylinder adjustment done after platen installation. Your local repair shop can handle this for your, or you can attempt it at home. This adjustment will improve not only the noise but the imprint of the letters on your page as well as the longevity of your platen.
Other ideas?
Do you have other options that have worked for you? Have you custom made your own anti-walking and noise cancelling accessories for your typewriter? Be sure to share examples or companies with usable solutions in the the comments below.
Looking for some serious entertainment with an intellectual bent on Tuesday nights this fall? Professor Michael Miller has got you covered in multiple dimensions.
Dr. Miller has now listed his mathematics offering for Fall 2025 at UCLA Extension. It’s Introduction to Hilbert Spaces: An Adventure In Infinite Dimensions (MATH 900). As always, it will be presented in lectures on Tuesday nights from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM with a short break in the middle. The class runs from September 23 – December 9 and is a screaming deal at just $450.00.
As many know, Dr. Miller does a superb job presenting advanced and abstract mathematics to the point that most students who take one or two classes return for decades. If you’re a fan of math and physics and have wanted to delve beneath the surface, this is an excellent opportunity to not only begin, but to meet lots of others who share your interests. For newcomers interested in taking a peek, I’ve written up a short introduction to his teaching style with some hints and tips based on my 18 years of taking coursework with him in his 52 year teaching career. There’s definitely a reason dozens of us keep showing up.
Here’s the description in the course catalog:
This course is designed for scientists, engineers, mathematics teachers, and devotees of mathematical reasoning who wish to gain a better understanding of a critical mathematical discipline with applications to fields as diverse as quantum physics and psychology.
A Hilbert space is a vector space that is endowed with an inner product for which the corresponding metric is complete (i.e., every Cauchy sequence converges). Examples include finite-dimensional Euclidean spaces; the space l2 of all infinite sequences (a1, a2, a3, …) of complex numbers, the sum of whose squared moduli converges; and the space L2 of all square-summable functions on an interval. This introductory, yet rigorous, treatment focuses initially on the structure (orthogonality, orthonormal bases, linear operators, Bessel’s inequality, etc.) of general Hilbert spaces, with the latter part of the course devoted to interpreting these constructs in the context of Legendre polynomials, Fourier series, Sobolev spaces, and other prominent mathematical structures.
The listed prerequisites for the course are calculus and linear algebra, though Dr. Miller generally does an excellent job of bringing up students without a huge machinery of mathematics background or sophistication up to speed to appreciate the material. Whatever you do, don’t let the technical nature of the description deter you from jumping into abstract mathematics with both feet.
Bibliography
The UCLA Bookstore currently doesn’t have a suggested textbook for the course listed. Dr. Miller doesn’t require a textbook, but will often suggest one in addition to the incredibly comprehensive notes he provides in his lectures for understanding the subject. For the curious and the less-experienced or budding mathematicians out there, his lecture notes are clearer and imminently more understandable than any book you’re likely to find on the subject.
For those curious in exploring the space, I’ve put together a short bibliography of some of the more common textbooks covering the undergraduate and graduate studies within the area. Dr. Miller is sure to choose one at the level of an advanced undergraduate (junior or senior level).
