Loved But Lost: Typewriters I Have Owned (I)

I often have a quick scan through the typewriters posted on Instagram, and it can cause some serious drooling. When I see typewriters I once owned, such as on Charlie Foxtrot's account, the sight also usually brings on pangs of regret. But, then, one thing I do notice about Instragram is that it's unusual to see any typewriters that are more than 60 years old, and even more rare to see some of those wonderful late 1940s-early 1950s German machines, such as the models brought out at that time by Torpedo, Voss, Alpina, Continental, Rheinmetall, Triumph, Gossen and Groma, great typewriters that once seemed to be so readily available at good prices, especially from the German eBay. When it comes to pre-WWII typewriters, one hardly ever sees any. And there are never any of the more uncommon models, such as the Engadine, Brosette, Montana or Alba. Of course, the emphasis these days, especially on Instagram, is on selling, not collecting, so by and large people aren't interested in the more unusual typewriters. I tend to think, yes, there are some really beautiful typewriters on Instagram, but there was a time when I owned a great many even more beautiful machines, and certainly many more unusual ones. Ted Munk commented the other day on what my typewriter collection once looked like, and that got me thinking and going through old some image files. Here is a selection of 54 of just Continental European typewriters which I continue to seriously miss (in some sort of order, based, I guess, on the lingering sense of the degree of regret still felt):

This is one of only two typewriters that were actually stolen from me. I still have the front plate, the rest of the machine simply disappeared, and that remains a deep mystery. I know who got away with the other typewriter, a Portex.

NEXT: Part II - North American typewriters.