1959 Olympia SM4

It has been over a month since I brought home the 1936 Underwood Universal. I never stopped looking. Nothing the marketplace has offered since has held my interest. That could be the marketplace. More likely it’s me, and I’m more selective than I used to be. Olympias always catch my eye. The listing photos didn’t […]

Remembering Henry Dreyfuss

Dreyfuss was born in New York in 1904 to a family in the theatrical materials supply business. He began as a stage designer. From 1923 he worked for the Strand Theater and later for the RKO Orpheum chain. He assisted Norman Bel Geddes on the 1924 Broadway hit The Miracle, and by 1928 he had […]

The Typewriter Manifesto

We assert our right to resist the Paradigm, to rebel against the Information Regime, to escape the Data Stream. We strike a blow for self-reliance, privacy, and coherence against dependency, surveillance, and disintegration. We affirm the written word and written thought against multimedia, multitasking, and the meme. We choose the real over representation, the physical over […]

Ames Segment Pick

I ordered a segment pick from Bremerton Typewriter Company several weeks ago. The segment is the arched piece near the center of a typewriter where every typebar passes through on its way to the platen. Decades of ink and paper dust can pack into the grooves there. That’s why an old machine can feel gummed […]

Project Tanker Desk: Part 3

Progress on the tanker desk has been slow. Now that summer has wrapped up, I’m hoping to have more time to devote to getting it finished. Finding the right paint has been the hangup. The original plan was to paint the desk with Rust-Oleum Hammered Verde Green, which embodies the mid-century modern industrial look. As […]

1936 Underwood Universal

Underwood didn’t start as a typewriter company. John T. Underwood built the business supplying ribbons and carbon paper to other manufacturers, chiefly Remington, until Remington started making its own. Underwood answered by buying into a machine, Franz Xaver Wagner’s design, acquired in 1895. Five years later, that design became the Underwood No. 5. It’s usually […]

1938 Royal Model O

Royal’s first budget portable was the Model P, released in 1926. The Model O replaced it in 1932, and for the next three years the two are hard to tell apart without checking the serial prefix. Then, in 1935, Royal restyled the shell. The boxy lines went soft and rounded. A lever above the keyboard […]

1958 Olympia SM3 #2

This is my third Olympia, and second SM3, which also happens to be a 1958 model. That part wasn’t intentional. I purchased this machine because it was green, a color I’ve been chasing for a while. The seller didn’t post a photo of the typeface, but I had a hunch there might be something special […]

1966 Olympia SM9

I wanted a pre-1969 SM9, because after that, things changed. In 1964 Olympia broke from the carriage-shift design that had carried the SM line since the SM3 and built a new body around a segment shift mechanism instead, the type basket doing the moving instead of the platen. First-year SM9s had off-white keys with turquoise […]

Are Old Typewriters Worth Anything?

So you found an old typewriter in grandma’s attic. Or maybe you came across one for cheap at a garage sale and you want to know if you can make a few bucks by relisting it on Facebook Marketplace. Before getting into what it’s worth, first figure out what you have. The manufacturer name is […]