Bringing The Typewriter (in the 21st Century) to Australia
Gary Nicholson, producer of the acclaimed documentary The Typewriter (in the 21st Century), approached me in early March about the possibility of bringing the film to Australian screens. If any...
View ArticleTypewriter in the Sky: Why the Skywhale Saga is So Much Hot Air
Skywhale, the frightening sight that will appear in Canberra skies to mark its centenary.What we should be seeing.This typecast typed on my US-made Litton Industries Royal Custom (serial number CM7...
View ArticleOrel Typewriter: A Rarity Or Not?
Please excuse the messy typing. Since I couldn't replace the ribbon, I used WD40 to rejuvenate the ink in the original ribbon, and of course it became very splodgy. Also, I meant 'export', not 'exort',...
View ArticleGood Typewriter Day, Good News Day, Good Friday, Good Karma, Good Companions
One Good Companion deed deserves anotherTold you so! I'd written my typecast a day before spotting this, posted two weeks ago by US Typospherian Winston Alden on his blog The Pipe and Grumble. It seems...
View ArticleBest Wishes to the Typosphere
On this the feast day of Saints Victor and Corona, who gave their names to great portable typewriters ...Especially to expectant Mums Alice and Rowan ...
View ArticlePateman's Pearler*: The Imperial Model 50 Typewriter
*Pearler: Australian informal expression for something impressive, excellent, pleasing.Another unexpected bonus from Project Typewriter Tidy-Up last weekend was that I finally got around to "dealing...
View ArticleUnderwood Noiseless Portable Typewriter: Long-Running Saga Ends
This is the state the previously flawless platen on Ray Nickson's Underwood Noiseless 77 was in when the portable typewriter, given to him as a wedding gift by his father-in-law, was returned to Ray by...
View ArticleA Simple Twist of Fate: the Mysterious Remington Travel-Riter Portable...
After typecasting with my Remington Travel-Riter portable typewriter this morning, I was reminded of what had at first attracted my attention to this machine, when it was listed on Australian eBay in...
View ArticleSpit and Polish for 1925 Corona 4 Portable Typewriter
It was just sitting there, looking all forlorn and sorry for itself. Battered and bruised and very grubby. So grubby it looked as if it had gained a bit of excess around the gills.Finally I took pity...
View ArticleThe 'Australian' Skyriter Portable Typewriter and the Rise and Fall of...
*Initially, the English-made Smith-Corona Skyriters were labelled Empire Coronas and were identical to the H.G.Palmer model.Empire Coronas being assembled in West BromwichThe Series 5 H.G.Palmer Corona...
View ArticleMercedes K45 Portable Typewriter: Five Times Better Than A Doberman
The Typewriter Serial Number Database is a bit confusing on the K45. It indicates the K45 is the Mercedes Superba and that production started in 1936. The K45 is, in fact, a direct descendant of the...
View ArticleSelecta or Superba: Which is the Mercedes K45 Portable Typewriter Descended...
Little did I think at 2.27 this morning, still half asleep as I waited to (unsuccessfully) bid on a nice burgundy woodgrain Rheinmetall portable typewriter on German eBay, that I had opened a small can...
View ArticleDifferent Typewriter Strokes for Different Folks
While writing my "Portables, ETCetera" column for the next edition of ETCetera (due out next month), I spent many hours trawling through typewriter listings on eBay in Germany, Australia, the US and...
View ArticleAnother Green Typewriter Day: Four Feet of Typewriters Arrive
Just as I was calming down from another of my early morning "bloody eBay sellers" bouts, there was a shout from the front door and the Sri Lankan postman was standing there with a stack of boxes almost...
View ArticleKrüger's Olympian Achievements: The Stoewer, Rheinmetall, Simplex, Progress,...
One of Johannes Krüger's earliest Olympia designs, the SimplexJohannes KrügerJohannes Krüger is arguably the most under-acknowledged of the great typewriter design mechanics of the 20th century. His...
View ArticleWaltons Portable Typewriter
Shoppers queue as Waltons opens in Melbourne, October 22, 1964
View ArticleThe Original Noiseless Portable Typewriter
Packing up a carload of typewriters tonight for my three-hour workshop at the Australasian Society of Forensic Document Examiners conference in Sydney tomorrow, I decided it was time to apply a tiny...
View ArticleSydney Type-In!
As expected, today's three-hour typewriter workshop in Sydney turned into a Type-In - only the second in Australia and the first in Sydney.The occasion was the conference of the Australasian Society of...
View ArticleSunburst Royal Portable Typewriter, Orange Ribbon
This typecast looks as if it was typed using a red ribbon, but I swear the original is orange. I blame my scanner: it's colour blind! Also, please excuse my poor attempts to spell Cincinnati correctly....
View ArticleBurgundy Triumph Norm-6 Portable Typewriter Beats the Quarantine Rap
This is a Bakelite typewriter, and a truly magnificent one at that! Serial #174881 (made in Nuremberg in 1936). The design, now that I take much closer note of Tony Mindling's Norm-6 (1944) on The...
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