Project GUNMAN
Sixteen typewriters in the US embassy in Moscow and the US consulate in Leningrad spent as long as eight years transmitting everything typed on them straight to Soviet intelligence, and nobody in Washington knew it. This wasn’t even the first time a hidden object had turned an American ambassador’s own office against him. In 1945, […]
The Corona in the Loft
The manhunt started on May 25, 1978, when a package exploded at the University of Illinois at Chicago and injured a security guard. The FBI code-named the case UNABOM, short for University and Airline Bombing, after the two kinds of targets the early attacks kept returning to, before Ted Kaczynski’s list of victims widened well […]
The Confession Letter
Cheri Jo Bates was murdered near a community college campus in Riverside, California, and for the sixty years since, her case has sat at the edge of the Zodiac story without ever officially joining it. Zodiac himself would later claim her. Riverside police still say he’s wrong. Whichever of them is right, the typed letter […]
Hiss-Chambers & Exhibit UUU
This case is at the center of one of the most durable conspiracy theories in American history. It played out just as Cold War anti-communist anxiety was tightening its grip on the country. A private investigator who may have been secretly reporting to the FBI. A federal judge who took a forgery theory seriously enough […]
1956 Groma Kolibri
The Kolibri’s flat profile didn’t start with this machine. In October 1936, an engineer named Leopold Ferdinand Pascher filed for a typewriter design he described as…
How a Typewriter Became a Witness
Long before anyone thought to compare typefaces, courts were already comparing marks on paper. The tradition goes back further than most people assume…
1969 Remington Streamliner
The Streamliner sits at the bottom of a family tree that starts somewhere better. In 1959, Sperry Rand’s Remington division put Carl Sundberg’s design on…
Forty-Two Keys to Victory
In July of 1942, John K. Stockham walked into a shop in Washington, D.C. and handed his typewriter across the counter to a man named…
What Are You Chasing?
Some people only want Royals. Every model, every era, every color they can find, as long as the badge says Royal. That’s the one that matters to them…
The Vintage Typewriter Buyer’s Guide
Condition determines a typewriter’s value more than age, rarity, or brand. Not “matters more.” Determines. A common Smith-Corona in excellent shape will out-earn a rare machine…