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Headliners Good and Bad. Good - Varityper; Bad - Chicago Sun-Times
I have been asked by a lady in Melbourne about finding a good home for this Varityper Headliner 820. It is listed on eBay at $1 but has failed to attract any interest. As much as I would be keen to try...
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The Typewritten Letter That Will Change a Nation
It's a black day for Australia. In an hour, Australia will bid farewell to its once visionary leader, former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, at a state memorial service in Sydney. At 11am, the nation...
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Ernest Hemingway and the Erika Folding Portable Typewriter
Ernest Hemingway's Erika 3 Folding Portable TypewriterThe young Ernest HemingwayAmerican writer Jeffrey Robinson emailed me overnight, saying he owns this Erika folding portable typewriter upon which...
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Finding a Typewriter's Serial Number
In the past week or so two readers have asked for directions in finding the serial numbers on their typewriters, a later model Imperial Good Companion portable and an L.C.Smith No 8 14-inch carriage...
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Back to the Garden at Woodstock: Celebrating an American Beauty, the Oliver...
By the time we got to WoodstockWe were fourteen hundred strongAnd everywhere there was song and celebrationAnd I dreamed I saw the typersRiding those typebars in an archAs they turned them into...
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In Brutal Fact, I Employ a Typewriter: Vale Morris Lurie
This you should know about me ...- Morris Lurie (1938-2014)Last month Australia lost one of its four remaining great typewriter writers. A Hermes 3000 user (with a spare in one cupboard and an Olivetti...
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'There's gonna be war' ... The younger gentleman seen in this 1930 movie is the great speed typist George Hossfeld. The older gentleman is James Nelson Kimball (1855-1943), an Underwood employee and...
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Blued-Eyed Canadian Mistress of the Typewriter Keys
 From TheOttawa Journal, November 3, 1979*The author of this piece, Peter McLaren, (born Toronto, August 2, 1948) is a nephew of Irma Wright. This was his first published article. McLaren is...
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When a Remington Travel-Riter DeLuxe (aka Monarch, Envoy) Portable Typewriter...
This model also appears as a Monarch and an Envoy.About a month ago, after visiting the Nicksons to see their Depression Era typewriter collection, I popped into a bric-a-brac store on my way home and...
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Last Days of Speed Typing Glory
In 2007, soon after the publication of that excellent book The Typewriter Sketchbook, its editor, Dutch typewriter collector and historian Paul Robert (The Virtual Typewriter Museum) suggested I should...
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Under heavy fire in Madagascar, he leapt ashore, carrying his Imperial...
Kenneth Gandar-Dower with Pongo at Hackbridge Kennels, Surrey, on February 4, 1937.Kenneth Cecil Gandar-Dower was the sort of real-life stuff of which Boy's Own stories were made. He was an...
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Anyone Who Had a Typewriter
With the typewriter-laden Ian Fleming (The Man Who Would be Bond) miniseries sadly already gone from our TV screens, I am looking forward to another British program starting on ABC TV tonight. Cilla is...
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Graduating with Honours: Singer Portable Typewriters (Made by Royal in Holland)
The Singer Graduate portable typewriter, a relabelled Royalite made for Singer by Royal in Leiden in Holland, arrived in Australia in September 1963 and was sold for 39 guineas (close to £41). By the...
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Typewriting's First Great Ball of Fire
To mark my 1800th post (and my own return to newspaper print) I want to salute the newspaperman who first embraced the typewriter and set it alight, Asael Othell Bunnell.Within 18 months of the...
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Facts About Typewriters - From 100 Years Ago
 Published 1914Typewriters described in this booklet:Underwood Nos 4 & 5L.C.Smith Nos 2 & 5Remington Nos 6 & 7Remington Nos 10 & 11Smith Premier Nos 2 & 4Smith Premier No 10Oliver...
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Being Rob Messenger
EVER NOTÂ WANTEDTO BE SOMEONE ELSE?- with apologies to Charlie KaufmanThese are some of the saddest and sorriest days in Australian political history. Not since the Australian Labor Party...
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Olivetti Lettera (Pluma) 22 - Carriage Not Gripping at Left Margin
As I've said before, it's hard trying to help someone fix their typewriter from thousands of miles away. It's harder still when we don't talk to same lingo.Yes, we've had a few language difficulties,...
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Benton Halstead: Cincinnati's Inventor of 'The First Typewriter'
Nineteen years and nine days afterChristopher Latham Sholes had passed away in Milwaukee (on February 17, 1890), New York and Washington DC newspapers reported the death of the "inventor of the first...
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The Burlingame Telegraphing Typewriter: The $15 million 'Famous Fake'
In fact, it wasdownright crookedNote that "Burlingame Telegraphing Typewriter" has been superimposed on this engraving. In reality, it never appeared on any device.Burlingame's "invention" was actually...
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John Adams Payne: Cincinnati's Pioneer of Typewritten Wire News
In a grave at the Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati lies the pioneer of typewritten wire news copy, John Adams Payne. Nashville-born Payne died in Cincinnati on May 23, 1924, aged 64.An 1882...
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