I feel like I can call myself a real typewriter afficionado now. My new pen typewrwiter-pal Tom Hanks has written me a letter on some fascinating letterhead.
How do you keep track of your typewriter collection?
I often see people asking questions about the value of vintage typewriters. Questions like:
Is it really worth $550 to buy a clean, oiled, and adjusted typewriter from a repair shop?
What about the cheap typewriters I see for $20-50 on Facebook Marketplace? Are they any “good”?
What’s with the dramatic difference in prices? Am I being tricked?
For the sake of clarity, I’ll be addressing the majority of the typewriter sales in the secondary market which are broadly the most common typewriters made for the commercial market after about 1925. Most of these were manufactured in the realm of hundreds of thousands to several millions each and are thus decidedly not rare.
Within this market, the savvy consumer knows that the condition of the machine is generally the biggest driver of the sales price. Sadly the majority of machines you see for sale are in poor to absolutely dreadful condition, but are priced as if they are cleaned, oiled, and well-adjusted right out of a professional typewriter shop. If you watch patiently, you’ll notice these so-called “rare” machines never sell. If you’re buying, you should ask yourself the following: Is the exterior of the machine in good cosmetic condition with clear and intact decals? Is the interior clean and free from excess dust, oil and other residue which can affect performance? Does the machine function as well as one could expect or almost as good as if it just came off the factory floor? Is the type properly aligned on the page? Does it make clear, bright imprints for all characters? Do all the buttons, levers, and adjustment points work as expected? Does the escapement work across the length of the platen? Will paper feed through properly? Are the rollers round, even, and grippy? Does it have its original metal spools? Does it have new or even usable ribbon? All of these cosmetic and functional factors effect the ultimate sales prices in the market.
The truth is that the vast majority of typewriters on the broad online marketplace don’t fit many of these criteria. Most are barely capable of any of these. A large number are dusty “barn” machines that have been sitting around for decades and barely befitting the name typewriter. Far too many have “sticky” keys or other mechanical problems. Many have broken or disconnected drawbands. Others suffer from a broad array of other repairable and even non-repairable maladies.
Having purchased around 50+ machines from a variety of online shops and thrift stores for $9-150, I have never gotten what one might call a “perfect machine” as one would expect recently serviced from a professional typewriter repair shop. Only a handful required an adjustment or two and a solid cleaning and new ribbon to be close to perfect.
I’ve recently been to a handful of type-ins now, and I can attest that most people who have their own typewriters are amateurs who at best have dusted off the exterior of their machines and are charitably limping (a base level of typing) along as best as they can with what they have. While this is certainly fine and potentially acceptable to some, it’s definitely not the lush level of a well-adjusted machine. If you want to be a good steward of your typewriter and plan on using it extensively or even professionally as an author, it is definitely worth the time and attention to have at least one solid machine in your arsenal. If you have the funds, definitely replace the rubber feet and re-cover the platen on at least one machine to enjoy pure typewriting nirvana.
One will regularly see posts of unknowledgeable sellers who insist they “know what they’ve got” offering dirty and disgusting typewriters for $500 or dramatically more. Most of the typewriter collecting community see these typewriters for sale and have a good laugh knowing that the seller is comparing their machine to an immaculate version of their typewriter that has been lovingly restored.
A Typewriter Repair Cost Thought Experiment
As a thought experiment based on several years of collecting and restoring/repairing typewriters, I decided it might be useful to create a ballpark representative graph of what the typewriter cost space looks like to have and use a great functioning typewriter. To do this I’m going to look at the raw base costs of what it takes to have a professionally adjusted and cleaned typewriter serviced by three different personas in the space. I’ll look at the seasoned professional with 9 months to many years on the job in a typewriter shop, the avid typewriter collector with between 15 and 50 or more typewriters in their collection the majority of which they’ve self-serviced, and the beginner to novice typist who is potentially buying their first, second or maybe third typewriter and who may likely never go beyond that number.
The repair layout of a collector with a wide variety of tools
The primary variables we’ll be looking at will be time, experience, and general costs. We’ll also look at tools and their availability, the cost of the machine itself, replacement parts, and the cost per hour of labor. I’ll be ignoring the cost of storage space and other miscellaneous overhead costs of actually running a business which a repair shop might require, but that an amateur is only tangentially responsible for by using space in their home. We’ll try to keep as many of the variables constant across the spectrum for a reasonably useful comparison of cost and time for these personas.
Tools
The availability and cost of various tools will be a factor and vary dramatically across the three categories. If the beginner doesn’t already have them, they’ll want at least a minimum of a couple of screwdrivers, an adjustable wrench, some canned air, a toothbrush, and some mineral spirits for about $100. A collector will have all of these as well as a dedicated air compressor, a full set of screwdrivers, wrenches, and several basic pliers, a variety of brushes (nylon, brass, and steel), some oilers, spring (push and pull) tools, and possibly even more for an investment of $300 or more. Finally the pro will have all of the above in addition to a wide variety of specialty tools for less common repair and adjustment needs. Many of these are not easily accessible and many are no longer manufactured. This will include a wide variety of custom pliers, benders, and potentially even a dunk tank for cleaning typewriters. This equipment will often require an investment of one or several thousands of dollars. Because this larger investment is depreciated out over the span of years and used on hundreds of machines, I’ll set the tool price per typewriter for the professional at $5, the collector at $20 and $90 for the beginner.
A collector’s toolset including some custom and hard-to-find pliers and benders.
Typewriter
Next is the actual cost of the physical typewriter itself. Whether it’s a Smith-Corona Corsair from the late 60s, a Smith-Corona Silent from the 50s, a 1930s Royal P, or an Olympia SM3 from the 50s, even a dirty, disused, old typewriter is going to cost something. I’ll consider what we’re buying as a baseline run-of-the-mill machine of the type you’ll find at almost any thrift store that is in desperate need of a cleaning and which may have a few sticky keys, has it’s fair share of eraser shavings and cobwebs inside, needs a couple of small adjustments and perhaps one repair or replacement part that doesn’t include replacing rubber feet or a platen. As most beginners don’t know the market well, they’re highly likely to pay in the $50-150 range for such a machine while the savvier collector will end up in the $20-75 range. The pro shop will quite often acquire their machines as donations or bulk pick ups for $5-20 each and the cost of gas to get them depending on what sorts of makes and models we’re looking at. As an anecdotal bit of data, one professional restorer recently told me he wouldn’t go over about $60 to buy a garden variety Olympia SM3 which most collectors would probably be on the hook for about $120.
Three cheers for eraser crumbs!
Repair and Replacement Parts
Pro shops are often much better off than the other two categories as they often have a dozen or more parts machines which they cannibalize to repair machines. They may also have custom suppliers of screws and springs which dramatically reduce the cost of researching and buying from places like McMaster-Carr, Fastenal, or your local hardware store. We’ll place their replacement part cost at about $5. Collectors may have parts machines, but are also likely to have friends, acquaintances or sources parting out machines inexpensively for around $15. The beginner will struggle to find repair parts and would potentially pay in the range of $40 for the same pieces.
Cost per hour for cleaning and repair
Professional repair rates in the United States are currently in the $40-75 per hour range, but for our back-of-the-envelope calculation, let’s stay with the more conservative $40/hour rate. The collector doesn’t have the same level of knowledge as a pro, but isn’t dreadful and knows where to look for what they need, so we’ll give them a $30/hour rate for work. Finally we’ll pay the wholly inexperienced novice the United States minimum wage of $20/hour. This is sure to save them a lot of money compared to the pro, but it’s also going to take the novice a huge amount of research work and tinkering to come close to the proficiency of the pro, so perforce, it will take them far longer to come to having a machine as nice at the end of the process. I would expect the experienced collector to slowly come close to the level of quality turned out by the professional, but this is going to exist on a scale based on level of experience.
Professional
Collector
Amateur
Reticent amateur
typewriter
$30.00
$90.00
$120.00
$120.00
tool cost
$5.00
$20.00
$90.00
$90.00
cleaning time
$320.00
$480.00
$2,240.00
$3,360.00
repair parts
$5.00
$15.00
$40.00
$40.00
totals
$360.00
$605.00
$2,490.00
$3,610.00
A graph of typewriter repair graphing experience against time and cost
As a result of the ballpark numbers above, I’m going to graph a few points for the various levels admitting that there is generally going to be some variance around the values. This variance increases as we move from the professional level (small variance) to the collector and then onto the novice (a much larger variance). Because the experience and ability of the beginner is so large, I’m going to plot two points for them to emphasize this variability. We can now take some of our rough numbers and plot the cost values against the amount of time it would likely take each of these levels to put out a single, clean, repaired and reasonably well-adjusted typewriter, keeping in mind that the level of the beginner will almost always lag behind the capabilities of the advanced collector or pro.
The purple $375 data point is for the professional repair shop, the orange $605 is for the collector, and the two red values at $2,490 and $3,600 are for the wide ranges of the beginners.
A professional shop with only one trained repair person will likely repair, clean, oil, and adjust a single machine in about 5-8 hours while the collector can likely do the same in about two days of full time work on average. The beginner, presuming they are mildly mechanically inclined and willing to try will take two to three weeks of full time work to pull off the same level of quality. This generally presumes the typewriter is not in horrible shape to begin with and doesn’t have complicated issues like subtle escapement problems.
Analysis and Conclusions
This graph, while it has some obvious variability given some very conservative numbers, will give the beginner at least some idea of not only the time, but the cost associated with buying and self-repairing/restoring a typewriter to the level that a professional shop would. Here I should say that we’re explicitly not including the costs of any new rubber feet, rollers, or a recovered platen which would potentially add a couple of hundred dollars to the overall base-level costs. Despite the availability of online advice and fora, the beginner often isn’t aware of the hidden costs of tools, materials, time, knowledge and effort involved to bring their machine close to its original condition. Typically they’re usually looking for the bare minimum to get a machine working and not to get it working to its peak capabilities the way a professional shop would.
If you’re a professional writer interested in getting straight to work on a professional level machine, it’s incredibly easy to see from this chart that you shouldn’t waste the time, effort, or expense of trying to buy a $20 typewriter (or worse, overspending on a $300 dirty typewriter) to clean up for yourself and your daily work. It’s a definite no-brainer to check out your local shop and buy a machine for $400-600. It’s even a no-brainer if you have to drive several hours to a distant shop to do the same. You could probably even fly and come out ahead. There is certainly a similar calculus if you’re a first time buyer in the market for a gift for a significant other or even a young child’s birthday or holiday present. Is it worth the supposed “savings” to buy a cheap machine and then spend the time and energy to bring it back to life? You definitely don’t want a gifted machine in poor shape to become someone else’s white elephant when they realize it needs some serious repair or cleaning work. Worse might be to spend a few hundred dollars on a machine in mediocre condition and then need to spend another $500-$750 on it at a repair shop to get it into the same condition you could have just paid for $500 upfront.
Further, you’ll notice that professional typewriter shops are not making a huge profit margin for their time and experience, even at the comparatively much higher levels of paid labor. (Remember we also didn’t factor in any overhead, retirement funds, health care, insurance, regulatory compliance, etc.)
Now the question becomes a bit harder to answer if you’re an inveterate tinkerer who wants to have a typewriter or twenty. If you’ve already got a nice toolchest and some garage space, perhaps the cost of doing your own machines is worth the trouble? Do you have the mechanical chops to begin with? Do you enjoy the research and digging required to puzzle out the repairs and adjustments of your new-to-you typewriter? Is it worth the hobby time as an “investment” in yourself and your mental health? Would you be acquiring lots of machines? Or do you just want three? What level of repair work are you willing to add to the mix of your sort of typewriter collection? How sustainable is that level over time and across the number of machines?
Obviously the more machines you collect and repair, the more valuable it becomes to invest in the knowledge, manuals, tools, and materials to do the work. Once you’re into it at the level of 50 machines with the majority of them in solid repair status, you’re beginning to hit the levels of a professional repair person. This also presumes that as you’re progressing, you’re also spending the time and effort to collect (buy) the uncommon tools of the trade as well as repair manuals to be able to more efficiently do your work. If the fun of repair becomes drudgery and “work”, then perhaps it’s time to invest into your local repair shop’s future? Doing this can help ensure the ensuing generations can still appreciate and use these machines.
If you’re both a collector and an active writer, are you properly balancing your priorities of writing and tinkering? Is the tinkering beginning to stand in the way of your productivity as a writer? Are you using the excuse of perfecting small adjustments on your typewriter to actively miss your deadlines?
What about the more expensive Hermes 3000s and Olympia SM3s of the world? In the realm of dirty, used typewriters there are some shining pricing exceptions that will provide even more exceptional value. For the past year or so the popularity and reputation of the Hermes 3000 and the Olympia SM3 have put their prices much higher than a lot of the rest of the market. As a result, an un-serviced Hermes 3000 can start at $250 and the Olympia SM3 can start at $120 even for the experienced collector. (Yes, you can get lucky and find these at garage sales, but that takes additional time and effort which isn’t included in our cost evaluation chart.) Despite this premium, professional shops are still selling these cleaned, oiled, and adjusted in the range of $500-550. This makes them exceptionally great values from repair shops for budding authors and professional writers. It also makes them larger risks for beginners who may need to spend even more attempting to clean and repair them if they’ve got significant damage.
At the end of the day, there’s a huge gulf between the experience of typing on the dirty typewriter from Joe’s grandmother’s attic that you (over) paid $200 for and the clean-as-a-whistle well-adjusted typewriter that you smartly acquired from an experienced vintage typewriter repair shop for around $500. If you’re buying a machine for regular writing use, you’ll know and appreciate the difference. Of course if you just need something as a bit of decor, then do what you will and go on about life, but at least you’ll have a bit of an idea of what you’re missing out on. If you choose not to miss out, you’ll have a much better idea of what sort of work you might be in for and what the trade-offs are to get the sort of machine you’d like to ultimately have.
Happy International Typewriter Day! Today commemorates the date in 1868 when Christopher Latham Sholes was granted a patent for the first commercially successful typewriter.
What are you doing to celebrate? I’m writing about the typewriter market to help out beginning collectors.
We often see typewriter cases and/or simple typewriter covers and people will post photos of how they display typewriters, but I saw a clever method on Saturday at a local type-in in Southern California.
Aaron Therol of Typewriter Connection brought along a signed Voss from Tom Hanks’ collection which included a sturdy green canvas typewriter cover with leather edge trim and an embossed leather Playtone logo. The cover included small, strong magnets sewn into the front and back edges which allow it to be physically attached to the front and rear of a typewriter’s metal body to keep the dust out while it’s sitting on a shelf in an open room and out of its case.
The cover was customized to the dimensions of the typewriter to cover from the front “chin” of the typewriter to the bottom of the back bottom edge. The color of the cover, trim, and materials can obviously be customized to the room and display shelving to highlight one’s collection and the decor of the room. In the case of this particular example the dark hunter green pairs well with the light metallic green of the Voss’s body and the dark colored keys.
With such a well-designed cover, one can then take the typewriter down off the shelf and place it on a typing surface and then the cover could double as a typing pad to dampen the sound as well as potentially preventing it from walking across one’s desk while being used. Given the weight of the piece, I would expect a piece of internal felt was (or could potentially be) sewn into it.
I look forward to seeing what the rest of the typosphere does with this clever method.
One of the biggest of the very few companies still manufacturing typewriters in the new millennium is the Shanghai Weilv Mechanism Company. Sadly, for the hobbyist space looking to get into typewriters, while these are easy to find online, they are notorious for dreadful quality control, lots of plastic, and poor type alignment. As a result, they make a terrible investment compared to the far more robust vintage and antique typewriters which were manufactured from the late 1800s into the 1980s.
If you know nothing about typewriters, but are looking to purchase one (either for occasional/regular typing or even as a display piece), I couldn’t recommend them given the fact that there are so many far better machines in the secondary market which are more robust and will last for centuries compared to these poor, plastic machines.
Prior to purchase, you should be aware that many reputable typewriter repair shops will often refuse to work on or repair them, and most probably wouldn’t even accept them as donations to be parts machines. Most collectors and typewriter enthusiasts I’ve encountered will almost universally recommend against purchasing these.
Shanghai Weilv Mechanism Company has licensed the names of some older manufacturers and are making typewriters variously rebadged and sold under the following names:
Generally, the internals of all these machines are identical with the biggest differences being the external shell styling and the colors in which they’re offered. Typically they sell in the range of $200-300 and given the ubiquity of the number $259, I would guess this is the manufacturer’s suggested retail price.
Reviews
In case you don’t want to trust my individual opinion recommending against these, you might appreciate some specific reviews from others:
Dr. Richard Polt, long time typewriter collector, former editor of ETCetera, the Journal of the Typewriter Collector’s Association, maintainer of The Classic Typewriter Page, and author of The Typewriter Revolution (Countryman Press, 2015): Typewriter review: Royal Epoch
Lucas Dul, a typewriter repairman from Typewriter Chicago, reviewed a 2023 Rover:
Sarah Everett, typewriter collector and creator of Just My Type on YouTube, reviewed a We R Memory Keepers Typecast typewriter:
I’ve also collected some links which talk about some of the models:
Hopefully some of the data here has helped your decision for a well-informed purchase. You might notice that in online reviews, most of the people who purchase these machines and give them high marks seem to value them as decor and for their aesthetic. While this may be great, you could still get older vintage machines in a broader variety of looks for a fraction of the price.
Naturally, some will still want to buy one or more of these machines anyway. If you must do it, I would recommend that you can find gently used versions of these machines, often in their original boxes, at auction sites like ShopGoodwill.com for $5-15 several times a week.
Two common questions I hear from those just starting out into the typewriter space are frequently about the basics:
How do I use a typewriter?
How to take care of typewriters or do basic maintenance?
Naturally there is a ton of colloquial advice you’ll receive on these topics from social media and YouTube, but it’s uneven and not very complete. If you’ve just bought your first typewriter, you’re looking for a quick crash course in how to do the basics so you can start punching the keys, but still take care of your machine. With any luck, the resources on this page will get you up and running with your typewriter in no time at all.
Editor’s note: In an upcoming article, I’ll cover the basics for how to find/purchase and install typewriter ribbon in a variety of machines. In the erstwhile, know that Tom Hanks can teach you the basics or you can search YouTube for your make and/or model to see how others have done this or consult the manual for your machine if it’s available.
At the start of World War II, typewriter manufacturers quit making them to focus on war efforts as well as to save precious steel for the war. As a fortunate result of this, being able to use and maintain them became a way to show one’s patriotism for the general effort and the United States Navy was there to help. Thus the Navy made several short films about the basics of typewriter use and maintenance. Though made in 1942 and 1943, these films cover a lot of the basics incredibly well and even extend to later typewriters made into the 1980s, so some of the best advice can be quickly found and consumed in under an hour.
Lots of this advice could or would have been learned in a high school or college-based typing class or in secretarial schools from the mid-century onwards. Sadly a lot of it is now missing from basic keyboarding courses which place all of their focus and practice on touch typing.
Below, I’ve compiled may of the most useful films I could find online for the basics of typing, typing methods, typing techniques and even some advanced methods when using manual typewriters. It’s likely that even the most advanced typists will be shocked and amazed by these films and learn something from watching them.
Beyond these examples, several manufacturers and entities made instructional and industrial films and even sales films covering some typewriter basics over the years. Some may be machine specific, but their advice is applicable not only to those machines, but a broad array of many others which are all incredibly similar with respect to functionality. For machines that differ from the norm, you can often compare your particular machine and its manual to various others which are available online.
Content warning: Some of these films from the mid-century have outdated gender roles.
Office Etiquette. 16 mm, Industrial. EBF Human Relations Film produced by Encyclopedia Britannica Films Inc. in collaboration with Hamden L. Forkner, Ph.D., Teachers College, Columbia University, 1950. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLF1STKnBTU.
Of course if you need some additional basics, which aren’t included in some of these, you should know:
Early typewriters conserving on the number of keys and what they were able to type relied on the operator knowing that different characters could be double purposed or superimposed to create new characters. These included:
Using either the lower case “L” key or, less frequently for custom typefaces, the “I” key to type the number “1” which was often excluded from the keyboard.
To make an exclamation point, you would type period “.” followed by a backspace and then an apostrophe ” ‘ “.
Recently Paulo philosophically asked me, a typewriter collector, “Why another typewriter? I haven’t been able to find an answer yet.” (My attempt at a translation/synopsis from his Portuguese.)
In addition to answers from the collector’s perspective, bonus points for answers that are also directed to answering this question which comes from your significant other who doesn’t understand your obsession. (I’m also posing this on the day that I’ve sadly chosen for family sanity to move 20 machines from the house out of immediate sight into the garage. 😔)
My current collection of 9 standard typewriters clocks in at 289.6 pounds (131.6 kg). Which one(s) should I take to the type-in at Vromans Bookstore this Saturday, May 10th at 1:00pm?
Which machines are you bringing?
Front row (left to right): ’51 Remington Super-Riter, ’56 Remington Standard, ’55 Royal HH, ’58 Royal FP (gray, 16″ carriage), ’57 Royal FP (gray)
Back row (left to right): ’45 Remington 17, ’50 Royal KMG, ’61 Royal FP (yellow), ’77 Olympia SG3
Within the typewriter space there are three broad categories of typewriters primarily based on size:
Standard (or office or desktop) typewriters were designed and meant for use in a stationary location, most often an office where they would be used for 8 hours a day (or more), every day of the work week. These typewriters, often tipping the scales at 25-40 pounds each, were made to take the heavy abuse of a daily typing and could be “pounded out” for 3-4 years before they were often given overhauls or remanufactured.
Portable typewriters were designed for greater portability and began appearing in the 1920s and in much greater numbers into the 1970s and early 1980s. Their sales were geared toward people who needed greater portability or who didn’t need a machine out on a daily basis the way in which businesses did. They were most often sold in small rectangular cases to aid in their portability as well as storability in cars, trains, airplanes, or even one’s closet when they weren’t in use. They often ranged from 15-25 pounds including their case. Most of these machines were sold to individual users for occasional rather than daily typing, and they often had a broader range of styling and colors throughout the years to appeal to the individual buyers.
Ultraportable typewriters were designed for the typist or writer constantly on the go. They typically had a low profile, were lightweight (under 15 pounds with their cases), and obviously easy to carry around on a regular basis. These machines generally didn’t have all of the frills or features of their larger counterparts but obviously got the job done well enough. Traveling journalists were originally one of the primary audiences here.
Which is better?
The “best” typewriter is going to be a highly personal choice. It will be based in part on a wide variety of factors and variables including:
the condition (does it function? how does it function? how clean is it? have parts been replaced, repaired, or restored? is it serviced? is it well adjusted?);
what your preference is in terms of functionality (do you need tabs? bichrome ribbon? card fingers? typeface? other?);
your personal touch preference (how it feels to you when you type on it, how you enjoy and appreciate it);
the price;
your personal aesthetic (do you like older machines, newer machines, something with a pop of color versus industrial office drab, crinkle paint versus flat, metal versus plastic, and a slew of other design sensibilities, etc.)
how are you using your typewriters? Are you actively using them to write, collecting them, displaying them, or a combination of all of these?
Beyond these variables the three broad categories of typewriters will differentiate themselves along the lines of size, portability, and design, and manufacturing quality, functionality, and durability.
Size, Portability, and Design
Obviously the smaller and lighter a machine is, the easier it is to carry. The ultraportables and portables will win out here. They’re designed to be moved around easily: pop it out, write, put it away when you’re done. Collectors love them because you can store or display them easily on shelves or stack them up in closets or other storage spaces. You can keep several dozen machines on a shelving unit or tuck them away under a bed or behind a couch.
Standard machines are moveable, but require some additional reasonable effort. It’s more bothersome to pick up a Royal HH, especially with a wide carriage, and move it across the house from your office to your living room or out onto the porch. It’s equally as bothersome to swap one standard from a display shelf with another so you can use it. This doesn’t mean that it can’t be done, but you’re not as likely to want to do it every day. With standards you plan to actively use on a regular basis, you’re going to want a permanent desk or typewriter stand to keep it on. If you’re storing or displaying standards, they require dusting maintenance or covers and take up much more space as they aren’t easily stackable. Standards tend to be deeper and require a larger shelf if you’re going to display them that way. (Be sure to measure as most standard bookshelves aren’t deep enough for most typewriters if that’s how you intend to display them.)
If you’re a day-to-day typist with only one or two typewriters, these problems aren’t terribly bad. If you’re a collector with 5-10 machines these considerations start to become more bothersome. Once you’ve got more than 25 machines in your collection, you’re going to want to start making different choices and plans about storage and display versus use.
When it comes to design, there are a lot more choices of body styles, colors, materials, and variety in the portable and ultraportable space. Even if the internals of a portable were relatively stable, the body styles and shapes changed every year or two. By comparison, the standard typewriters meant for office use tended to have more limited color palates (if you could call industrial blacks, grays, and browns a palate) and body stylings.
As an example, in the Royal line of standard typewriters, almost nothing changed functionality-wise from the Royal Ten through the H (and related KH, KHM, and KHT variants), KMM, KMG, HH, FP, Empress, and 440. This covers from about 1912 to 1968 with the same internal mechanics. It was just small changes in the body styles which moved very slowly and were generally only offered in one or two colors until the more colorful options on the Royal FP were introduced in the very late 1950s.
Manufacturing, Quality, Functionality, and Durability
The level of manufacturing and quality when it comes to typewriter categories is a much more subtle subject as it’s not as immediately seen as the size and portability factors.
Because of their use cases, standard machines were built with more solid materials using higher manufacturing tolerances and usually better quality steel (or other materials). They were designed to be pounded on every day for 8 or more hours a day for years at a time. While some portables may have been used this way, most weren’t and surely almost no ultraportables were. Most of the serious abuse that smaller and lighter machines took was generally to their cases in being moved around as well as to the various body panels from being put into and out of their cases. (Smith-Corona portables are notorious for scratches on the rear panels from the rear metal cleat in their cases and some of the Remingtons’ front “chins” from the late 40s case designs.)
Standards use in business also meant that the alignments and visual outputs were held to higher standards than their lighter counterparts which were more often used for personal correspondence or draft quality work. This required better tolerances to allow for the abuse versus the expected type quality and alignment. The quality differences are less apparent on some of the 1950 American made Smith-Corona 5 series or the incredibly well engineered German Olympias and Swiss Hermes portables of the 1950s and 1960s.
The quality issue becomes rapidly more apparent into the 1970s and 1980s when cheaper materials and plastic were being used in portable typewriter manufacture as machines were being mass produced by only a few companies and primarily only out of Japan. These quality issues are now at their zenith in the new millennium with cheap typewriters made by the Shanghai Weilv Mechanism Company in China. Their new typewriter offerings under a variety of brand names including Rover, Royal Epoch, We R Memory Keepers, Royal Classic, and The Oliver Typewriter Company are widely known in the typewriter community for their dreadful quality control, cheap plastic, and both poor and unserviceable type alignment issues.
Because they had additional interior space and engineering capacity, standards also have better adjustment points for accommodating a variety of touch needs for the end user. At the time, most standards were generally serviced in-house by travelling repair people who had the ability to help typists adjust the machines to their particular touch needs. I’ve yet to run across a portable Smith-Corona whose primary touch control actually effectuated any difference at all, though they do have a variety of other more subtle/hidden touch controls which require advanced knowledge of the machines.
From a functionality perspective also differentiated across their use cases, most standard typewriters came with the full component of features offered in typewriters of their respective times. As an example, standards almost always came with tabulators and easier exchangeability of platens. Portable models often used tabulators as an additional mark up feature that cost more if you wanted them and platens were not easily swapped except on the highest end models and generally not until later into the 1950s. Here the range of subtle feature differences seen on the Smith-Corona 5 series portables is illustrative with the Clipper at the low end followed by the Sterling, the Silent, and the Silent Super at the highest end with the most features. On the German Olympias, the primary differentiating feature between the SM2, SM3, and SM4 is tabulator functionality and how easy it is to use if it’s available. Other features like bichrome ribbon, sturdier paper bales, paper table alignment features were considered optional on some portables and wholly missing on ultraportables which may have left them out completely. If you’re looking for a machine that has everything, usually a standard typewriter is your go-to choice. One of the few options on standard machines was a decimal tabulator for aligning accounting-based work.
While it may not have been as obvious in the midcentury, there are very subtle functionalities that standard typewriters offer to modern users who are looking for distraction-free writing affordances. While all typewriters have a greater level of distraction-free affordances in comparison to computers, standards offer two additional ones which may be wholly overlooked. As they’re less portable, they usually require a dedicated space for use which tends to call out to (or alternately guilt) the writer to sit down and concentrate on writing. The other is that the standard’s significantly larger size takes up a larger amount of area in your field of view while sitting at it. This tends to cut down on other visual distractions to the writer while sitting at the machine and working. Less distraction helps the concentration and, ideally, your ultimate output.
Finally, it bears a moment to look at typewriter serviceability. This is especially important now as the once ubiquitous typewriter repair shop doesn’t exist and aficionados and hobbyists do a lot of home repair. Since standard office machines saw near-constant use, their size made them much easier to get into and service, particularly by traveling repair technicians. Portables and ultraportables are much smaller and far more compact which requires more work and effort to open up and service when things go wrong or need repair. This size difference also means requiring a lot more patience and care as well as possibly smaller and/or different tools when doing service work on portables and ultraportables.
Hopefully this covers most of the finer points in choosing between the three broad types of typewriters for both the novice typist as well as the more practiced hands. If you’ve got questions or have noticed other subtleties in the differences between the three, I’d love to hear them.
I’ve finally broken a small barrier and am now ranked as typewriter hunter#115 on the Typewriter Database. I have a few machines that should arrive soon which in combination with doing some repairs and uploading some data should help me finally break into the top 100.
I’m not out to shame people for their purchases, just to caution uninitiated typewriter purchasers and budding collectors who aren’t carefully watching the market.
Olympia SM3s are well-touted and excellent typewriters. They’ve recently been selling on ShopGoodwill in unknown condition for $120-150 based only on photos.
Earlier today, an Olympia SM3 sold for $334! So what gives? Why did this go for over twice as much as the average? To the uninitiated, the seasoned collector can look at this machine carefully and realize that even without seeing a type sample or a close up photo of the slugs that this machine is quietly hiding a script typeface of some kind. This means that two bidders would have paid an almost $200 premium for a script typeface, and one of them managed to snipe it for $1 with minutes left. Generally I see script machines going for $100-150 over similar machines without script.
Sadly, the high price on this machine earlier in the day may have suckered others into thinking these machines are significantly more valuable as it seems two other Olympia SM3s right after it both went for:
$202.03 https://shopgoodwill.com/item/222707079
$202.03 https://shopgoodwill.com/item/222546519
And they were bid over 200 by the same two people while the “smarter” money stopped with bids at $137 on both.
Of course, neither of these later two machines have a script face, but at least two bidders were potentially reeled in by the much higher sales price of the script machine earlier in the day. This means that they’ve overpaid at least $50 above market for each, possibly thinking that they may have gotten a great deal. Sadly they didn’t, they just overpaid the market average. The person who was sniped on both managed to save themselves $100+ today because I imagine they’ll be able to get equivalent machines in the coming month for closer to under $150.
Incidentally another later Olympia portable (usually in the $75-120 range) earlier in the day went for a more reasonable $232 with a stated/photographed cursive typeface. This one was a stronger deal in the current market as they only paid about $110 above average for that machine to get the script typeface. The tough part is that because the description stated “cursive”, they didn’t have the benefit of possibly picking up a script machine with less competition.
While this is an interesting microcosm example of the current (overheated?) typewriter market (at least in the US), I hope all the buyers of these machines enjoy their purchases. If they’re your first Olympias, and they need some work to get back to fighting shape, I’ve put together a guide.
Thorpe is often amused by the objects he finds in the machines. “I’ve found pens, memory sticks, house keys, Lego bricks, little rubber toys, all sorts inside,” he says.
I often find things inside typewriters…
LEGO (multiple), a chicken leg from a Calico Critters playset, a tiny 70s photo of a child, the stub of a pencil, glitter, a pocket knife, a mini clothespin…
And naturally lots and lots of eraser bits, loose screws, loose springs, dust rhinoceroses, dried white out, dirt, cobwebs, even dead spiders, and even love.
What’s the oddest thing you’ve found in a typewriter?
I’ve been wrenching on enough typewriters, that it was time to up my game again and add some new typewriter tools to the proverbial tool bag. In fact it was also time for an actual tool bag! So back on August 16th, I added a portable repair person’s leather bag and some new typewriter repair tools to my collection. For those interested in improving their skills and typewriter tools, I am documenting some of these new typewriter repair and maintenance tools. If you’re getting into the space, I highly recommend you slowly build your toolbox with items only as you need them.
With some of the harder-to-find tools, do take care as they can often be dramatically overpriced in online auctions. The more cost-conscious should be on the look out for bundles of tools which are usually much less expensive than purchasing them one at a time. Additionally if you search around a bit you might find local collectives of typewriter enthusiasts who share or loan out tools.
Save the containers of solvents and the bottles of cleaning agents, all of the items which appear on this table fit comfortably into the black leather tool carrying case.
Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag
The leather repair bag I picked up is similar to one that late century traveling repair people would have carried with them for on-site repairs and typewriter maintenance. It has a compartment in the bottom with space for three metal trays of replacement parts. It has a side pocket for manuals and any necessary service paperwork. The main compartment has a large open space for a variety of wrenches, screwdrivers, and various other tools for use on the job.
Until I create a dedicated space in the garage for typewriter repair, this bag makes an exceptionally convenient storage space for keeping all my typewriter related tools in one place. I particularly love the heavy leather and patina of it as a piece and it works reasonably well as a decorative item with the rest of the collection. Modern variations of this bag can be found at purveyors like Crawford Tool which cater to copier, fax, and electronics repair spaces. Sadly leather covered wood isn’t an option, but there are a variety of soft cover, hard cover, and even metal or military cases available, some with extensible handles and wheels.
The bag itself is in great condition given its age and general use. It certainly helps that it was incredibly well designed and made with some seriously sturdy materials. The thickness of the leather is truly astounding compared to any bag I’ve ever come across. There are one or two pieces of leather that need to be repaired or re-attached to the wooden internal frame and a button/snap that needs to be repaired. These should be easy fixes for a rainy day.
Because new stock isn’t much of a reality and I prefer to keep parts in situ on parts machines for use when needed, I haven’t been using the three metal parts containers as much as I might. Instead, I tend to use them as temporary receptacles of screws, nuts, and springs while I’m taking apart machines for restoration. This helps in keeping sections separate for easier re-assembly and having three means that I could be working on three disassembled machines at a time if I wish without getting parts from different machines confused.
Along with the bag I acquired wide variety of wrenches, screwdrivers, tweezers, and some new specialty typewriter repair tools. The specialty tools tend to the higher end of typewriter repair and adjustment that most hobbyists can manage without, but which can be useful from time to time.
Below are some of the new (and other recent) acquisitions:
Typewriter Manuals
The Manual Typewriter Repair Bible (wirebound; digital) – While there are a lot of great repair manuals out there, many specializing in one or more very specific models or series, this is probably the general repair manual you’d want in a pinch. The fact that it’s wirebound means that you can easily have it out on the bench for reference without worrying about the binding closing and losing the page you’re working on at a given moment.
Typewriter Cleaning Tools
Nylon, Brass and Steel brushes – these are good for a variety of purposes. The nylon brush is great for general cleaning an maintenance. The brass brush in combination with mineral spirits is perfect for cleaning type slugs which have heavy dirt, ribbon, and grime build-up and won’t damage the slugs. The steel brushes can be good for more aggressive cleaning of various rusted parts as necessary. Some care should be exercised though to ensure that the typebars aren’t so vigorously scrubbed that they are accidentally bent.
Chip brush – this type of soft bristled paint brush is excellent for handling dust, cobwebs, and other large debris when doing the first round of cleaning a typewriter. They’re also nice for regular weekly dusting of machines around the house.
Soft bristle fingernail brush – these have been excellent soft bristle brushes for use in cleaning typewriter external panels in conjunction with scrubbing bubbles or Simple Green cleaners. Their small size is particularly nice for getting into some of the smaller spaces that my bigger brush might miss. They’re also useful for getting the grease and grime underneath your fingernails after a day of wrenching on typewriters.
Libman curved hand brush – this has been excellent for scrubbing the exterior body panels of typewriters, particularly those with crinkle paint. The bristles are firm enough to scrub and get into small spaces without damaging the paint and stand up to some repeated use.
Cotton cleaning rags – these are excellent for a variety of cleaning uses, they’re fairly ubiquitous at hardware stores (especially the paint section), and definitely beat Q-tips for ease of use as well as cost.
General Typewriter Tools
4 pair of precision AA tweezers – these needle tipped tweezers are excellent for holding onto small pieces including small nuts or washers which sometimes need delicate handling while screwing screws into them. They can also be used for type slug soldering if necessary.
Needle nose pliers, duckbill pliers, and general purpose pliers – the bag came with duplicates of some of the sort I’d already had.
Screwdrivers – the bag came with a plethora of variously sized screwdrivers (mostly flathead), but I find they’re not as useful as some of my smaller precision screwdrivers which I use more frequently.
Jensen 8 piece open end ignition wrench set (with 7/32, 15/64, 1/4, 9/32, 5/16, 11/32, 3/8, and 7/16 wrenches) for handling a variety of small nuts.
Specialty Typewriter Tools
Below are some of the more specialty and harder-to-find typewriter tools I’ve acquired, most of which came with the repair bag.
Two T-bar benders/link benders/type bar twisters – These thin bars with slots in the bottom and a T-bar at the top are used for bending or twisting a variety of typewriter parts which may need to be gently formed (typewriter repair-speak for bent).
Royal S-39 Ribbon Vibrator Arm Bender – This thin metal tool has two small slots cut into it for forming the Ribbon Vibrator Arms on Royals, but can be useful for forming a variety of thin metal parts. (see p. 360 of The Manual Typewriter Repair Bible)
Eyelet tool for putting small metal eyelets into typewriter ribbon. Generally I use this for Smith-Corona and other typewriters whose auto-reverse ribbon mechanisms are actuated by the metal gromets placed into the ends of typewriter ribbon spools. I picked this up when I switched from using pre-spooled ribbon to buying bulk ribbon and spooling it by hand.
I primarily use these to clean out the internals of most of my machines. Obviously care should be used to protect paint, plastic, and non-metal portions from these caustic solvents.
In cases where spattering or soaking issues may occur, I’ll use vaseline or other grease to cover up painted surfaces or decals so they’re not damaged, or I’ll cover things up (like keyboards with plastic or glass keys with paper legends) with thicker towels for brief exposures where soaking through isn’t a big concern. In some quick cases, like the painted logos on segments, I’ll just cover them with small pieces of packing tape which are easily removable without causing damage.
To help cut down on excessive use of these caustic chemicals, I make use of small plastic oilers with a long thin spouts to better limit and control the amounts of solvent I’m using. These are also useful for more accurately dispensing solvents onto small and specific parts.
Remember that these solvents should only be used in very well ventilated spaces and away from open flames or sparks which can easily ignite them and cause fires. Repeated exposure to the fumes of these materials can damage your lungs.
Mineral spirits
Lacquer Thinner
Acetone
PB B’laster – this is great, but has a more pungent, lingering smell than some of the other solvents
Cleaners
Scrubbing Bubbles – this is great for typewriter exteriors including crinkle paint and plastic of most sorts
Simple Green – a great cleaner and degreaser for removing decades of dirt, grime, and nicotine from the metal exterior of a wide variety of machines
Oil
Premium Sewing Machine Oil – this is great in sparing quantities for typewriter carriages and linkages which require lubrication. The pull-out extended spout is excellent for accessing the hard-to-reach interior parts of typewriters, particularly if they’re fully assembled.
Rem Oil – This aerosol-based oil is excellent for cleaning, lubricating, and providing corrosion protection for difficult to reach typewriter internals, particularly when you don’t have need to strip an entire machine down.
As ever, following up oil applications with compressed air can assist in thinning down oil on parts so that over-oiling and dramatic oil build-up doesn’t occur.
WD-40
Most will know of the regular caveats and admonitions about not using WD-40 to lubricate a typewriter, especially the segment. (Hint, it’s for Water Displacement—thus the abbreviation WD—and isn’t a lubricant.) However, WD-40 does work pretty well on crinkle paint finishes to provide both some protection as well as shine.
The clean front panel of a 1950 Royal KMG in gray frieze paint contrasted with the dust covers one of which is covered in 70 years of dust, dirt, tar, and hair and the other cleaned and sparkling after a treatment with WD-40.
Future
I’m still on the lookout for some keyring pliers for both round and tombstone keys as well as a variety of peening wrenches, but my general need for these has been relatively low for most of the work I’ve done thus far. It’s also a somewhat larger investment, but I really want a nice air compressor for more easily cleaning out machines. I’m also curious to do some research on durometer gauges for testing platen hardness and creating some guidelines about when to replace hardened platens. I’d love guidance on anyone who has researched this area before.
I’m also hovering on the border of doing professional typewriter repair part time on the side. I only have so much space to store repaired and restored machines of my own, and I feel guilty about restored machines sitting around unused. But I also enjoy tearing them down, repairing them, and restoring them back to their former glory. Why not turn my hobby into a part time gig for helping out others and carrying along the craft of typewriter maintenance, repair and restoration? It would also allow me the ability to work on a broader variety of machines.
What typewriter tools are in your collection, and, most importantly, how are you using them?
I always love hearing ideas, tips, and suggestions for making the work of typewriter maintenance and repair easier and more accessible for the home mechanic.
Editor’s note: This is another article in a recuring series of typewriter articles about typewriter use, collecting, repair, restoration, and maintenance. If the subject is of interest, feel free to delve into more of that collection.
I’ve yet to find a bulk dealer in typewriter ribbon that has a significant website with listings of their offerings and options. (Let’s hear it for analog!) Baco Ribbon certainly didn’t, so I called a few times and made some orders and pieced together most of what Baco Ribbon & Supply Co. offers.
Fine Line Ribbon also has some excellent bulk offerings and an almost non-existent website. I thought I’d make a similar post with their current offerings so that those who have typewriter collections that go past 5 machines or who are scaffolding their way to opening typewriter repair shops might have an easier time of selecting and ordering the appropriate ribbon. 12-15 cents per yard of ribbon in bulk is so much better than paying almost a dollar per yard otherwise. It pays for itself pretty quickly.
They offer ribbon in both nylon and silk in partial and full reels. (Sorry, no cotton ribbon offerings at the moment.)
Silk Typewriter Ribbon
For silk, Fine Line Ribbon only offers black/red or black ribbon color options at $0.33 per yard. A full reel of silk is 545 yards.
Nylon Typewriter Ribbon
For nylon, whose full reels are 660 yards, Fine Line Ribbon can ink in any of the following single color options or your choice of any two colors as a bichrome option:
Black
Blue
Brown
Green
Orange
Pink†
Purple
Red
They often have partial reels of most colors available. Black or Black/Red nylon is $0.12 per yard and other colors or color combinations are $0.15 per yard.
Matthew Weaver (the Guardian)
