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Tuesday 19 August 2014

No Kidding - Kidder Made No Din: Prototypes of the Noiseless Typewriter

These two early 20th Century Nodin (get it, "no din") prototypes of the Noiseless typewriter are in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. As Dutch typewriter historian Paul Robert once described them, they look like a cross between the Empire (aka Wellington) and the Noiseless.
 My collection
Wim Van Rompuy Collection
The name of the proposed typewriter was discussed in correspondence between the inventor Wellington Parker Kidder and the company founder Charles Carroll Colby in the late 19th century and early 1900s. "Nodin" and "Silent" were both considered before "Noiseless" was settled on.
An article by Alexander Sellers in the September 1995 issue of ETCetera (No 32) regarding correspondence between Kidder and Colby can be downloaded in PDF form here.

2 comments:

Richard P said...

... and see ETCetera no. 81 for Ed Neuert's article on the early history of the Noiseless.

Bill M said...

Those are some spiffy noisless typewriters.