About this blog

This blog is about the daily activities in a busy typewriter shop. I want to share with you the many interesting people who come in here, the beautiful machines I get and most of all the great typewriter stories that people share with me!

Sunday, March 20, 2011

A Nice Score

     I wasn't sure what I was going to lead off with on my blog this week until my friend John came in the shop at 1PM Saturday afternoon. He brought in six machines that he picked up for me and a few new typewriter ads. Besides being a wonderful friend, John knows what sells in here and what kinds of machines I'm always on the prowl for. Today he brought in three Olivetti L-32's, two from Spain and one from Italy and all are pica type. In the past two weeks I have gotten a dozen emails from people looking to buy L-32's and I didn't have any. So I'm thrilled to start getting some in. Earlier in the week I got a L-32 in script. I've had lots of script machines in the last few months but I haven't had a L-32 script in years. I had forgotten how nice it looks, really stylish with long flowing descending characters.


These beauties will be gone soon.
      I also received two Corona's with the curved fronts, one in black and one in burgundy and both pica type. The burgundy one looks especially nice. I really like this machines. There is a simple elegance about the design of these Corona's and I've always loved the touch and feel of the keyboard. My fingers feel right at home typing on one of these beautiful machines. The last machine I got in is a Olympia SM2 with a German keyboard. A professor from a midwestern university emailed me a week ago looking for a German keyboard Olympia SM3. I hope this one fits the bill. I got some wicked cool ads again and a 78 RPM record of the Remington Rand Concert Band from WWI years. Not being able to post these ads is killing me. Many of them are so cool and funny, they need to be seen. I'm running out and buying a scanner later today. I've put it off long enough. So, I guess I'll be typecasting next week. I am a little on the computer illiterate side, so if I can get my brother-in-law to help me figure it out, I'm there.

     I have officially caught up on my backlog of repairs. That took six weeks of working seven days a week, but it's done. And I am really exhausted and burned out. That was quite a ride if I do say so myself. Definitely one of the longer sustained rush of business I've had in some time. Now things have settled down to a normal pace and I can catch up some things I haven't had time to do lately like paper work, cleaning the shop and reconditioning machines, framing more ads to hang up on the wall.

     While things are finally settling down, there's still lots of action happening. Service calls are still strong and I'm travelling up to twenty miles away to do some calls. I've noticed that I get a lot more emails now. I never know if they are local or long distance but it means that my name is getting out there more. I have the typosphere and you typecasters to thank for that. THANK YOU!  I had some very nice sales this week.

This machine sold itself. Love the medallion in the hood.
            
     This beautiful Smith Corona in burgundy sold a couple of days ago. Someone wants to do creative writing at home. I have a matching one in olive at the store. The olive one has the original instruction book dated 1935. A really nice lady bought a Royal "O" Model to use at home . An elderly gentleman got a Smith Corona Coronet XL electric typewriter for home use also. And lastly, a town clerk's office on the south shore bought a IBM Wheelwriter 3 for office use. I'm looking forward to this week. I can't wait to recondition those new machines so soon as possible.
     Well, that's it for this week. Thanks for checking it out. I hope everyone has a wonderful week.
    

4 comments:

  1. Hi Tom, before rushing out and getting a scanner, you could try using a digital camera? If it has a 'macro' setting, you should be able to get close enough. If you can overexpose by a half or on stop - you might just be able to upload it untouched. Worth a try... lovely post. Thanks.

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  2. Thanks Rob, I'll try that out first.

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  3. Which Remington Band recording did you find? I have one of their early recordings, A1433 with "Salute to the Sultan" and "Fraternal Spirit March". There was one other record recorded during the same session but released a little bit later (at least, it has a higher matrix number, A5509). "Home, Sweet Home, the World Over" and "War Song of the Boys in Blue". I saw A5509 on eBay a while back, but it went beyond my personal limit for single records.

    As far as I've been able to find, these four songs were the very first recorded by the RTCB. These records are a fun and somewhat scarce typewriter-related collectible!

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  4. Alan- Right on! Indeed, that is Home Sweet Home The World Over, number A5509. The record itself looks in really good condition. I might dig out my old turntable just to listen to it. Also, thanks for the info. If I find any more, I will post it. Thanks again for commenting.

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