Typewriter Bells at Christmas

I chose the Fox N0 24 standard typewriter because it was made in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where The Polar Express is set. The Remington is a No 16.

 The movie poster

 Chris Van Allsburg

Ted Munk put out a plea last week for a ribbon spools cover for his Olivetti Studio 45, and I just happened to have a spare parts mask (above) sitting taking up space and gathering dust. It will be winging its way to Mesa, Arizona, by tomorrow afternoon. Ted's coverless Studio 45 is below:

Hours earlier, Ted had responded to my post about the armless Naked Olivetti Lettera 22 (now suitably dubbed the "Venus de Milo" by Mark Petersen) by stressing how tricky it is to replace the carriage lever (alone) on one of these models. 

I was aware of this, and wouldn't have even attempted to tackle such an undertaking. In saying I had another spare parts Lettera 22 to use for the task, my plan was (is) to replace the entire left-hand section of the carriage, not just the lever:

At the same time, Ray Nickson got in touch for similar reasons, inquiring about a carriage lever from a spare parts Olivetti portable. At first I thought Ray was referring to the Studio 45, so I assumed I'd have even more use for this spare parts machine. But in fact it is a spare parts Studio 44 that Ray needs. Still, all this once more demonstrates what a fantastic place the Typosphere is for people needing typewriter help and parts. And what a great chance it offers to be giving and receiving gifts at Christmas! 

 

Francis Pharcellus Church (above)

and his reply to Virginia O'Hanlon (below):

The Naked Olivetti Lettera 22 Portable Typewriter - She's 'Armless!

While working on another project, and waiting for things to dry in this scorching Canberra summer, I decided to finally tackle a paint-faded Olivetti Lettera 22 mask which had been sitting out the back for months - it was only adding to the clutter.

This turned out to be a bigger project than expected. Reinforcing that Olivetti, when servicing these machines, offered re-paints of the casing and ribbon spools cover (but not the paper plate), this machine had at least two coats – fawn on top and blue-grey underneath.  So it took lots of paint-stripper and even more elbow grease to get all the paint off.

The original plan was to repaint it in red and green stripes for Christmas, but it looked so good stripped to the metal that I grabbed the guts of a Lettera 22 from off the spare parts heap and assembled the machine. Only then did I realise why the mechanics had been chucked on the spare parts heap in the first place – it has no carriage lever! Ah well, even without the lever, it works greats and looks sort of sexy in the nude – I might just leave as it as it is. We’ll see …     

PS: Before anyone springs to my aid, I do have a spare carriage lever I can fit to this machine - I just didn't around to doing it.

Days of 'I Am Typewriter' Set to Return - Another Dream Comes True

Some observant Typospherians may have already guessed it, but in the past five days I have been unearthing and digging through box upon box of typewriter ephemera. As I have come across things of particular interest - stuff which had been stored away years ago and forgotten about - I have put them aside with the plan to use them for future posts on this blog. The "Cream of Typewriters" coffee creamer caps post hardly even "skimmed the surface" (if you'll pardon the pun!).

Among the many items uncovered were five booklets produced by zinemakers to mark the "I Am Typewriter" festival held in Melbourne in February 2011.

Last October, during Richard Polt's presentation on his The Typewriter Insurgency book, given at the Herman Price Typewriter Collectors' Gathering at the Chestnut Ridge Typewriter Museum in Fairmont, West Virginia, I promised to post Richard these booklets (which I will now do). I figured (and Richard seemed to agree) that he might be able to make some use of these "modern manual typewriter applications". The titles include Mile High: Collected Ramblings From A Travelling Typewriter, QWERTY Pop, The Top Eleven Things To Do With a Typewriter Ribbon and Just My Typewriter.

Finding these booklets brought flooding back many happy memories of the "I Am Typewriter" festival, one of the most enjoyable experiences of my typewriter collecting career. For one thing, it enabled me to meet Tino ("The Teeritz Agenda") and catch up with Tom Koska (below).

Unfortunately (at least for me), the Sticky Institute decided not to follow it up last year with another typewriter-related event, but instead to hold a  similar tribute to the photocopying machine. I still have a chuckle to myself when I recall Richard's remark, upon hearing this news, that "'I Am Photocopier' doesn't quite have the same ring, does it?"
Victorian state and Melbourne city authorities might well have felt the same way. After the roaring success of "I Am Typewriter", attended by many hundreds of people, funding was reduced, the woman who had so superbly organised the 2011 festival lost her job, and these events seemed to disappear. 

"The Love Typist"

Thinking back on "I Am Typewriter" the other day, I had wishful visions of it some day returning, in some form or other. The way my luck is running at the moment, it now seems hardly surprising that my wish appears to have turned into someone's command.
This morning I was contacted about taking part in a similar event in Canberra next March 23. The CanberraZine Emporium evolved from this year's YAH (You Are Here) zine fair festival. It has just secured funding to fund a "ZINE vending machine". 

My involvement will be with a DIY (Do It Yourself) self-publishing day at Gorman House. The organiser, who attended "I Am Typewriter" and was deeply impressed by it, explained, "Typewriters are a huge part of zine making - and your involvement would be greatly appreciated!"
I am excited about the prospect of taking part. Canberra hasn't hosted a typewriter-related event such as this since the 2006 Literary Festival at the National Museum. Eight years is too long!:

(I exclude from this my own Typewriter Exhibition at the Canberra Museum and Gallery last year, which wasn't a participant event.)

The 2014 Canberra event is expected to follow by a fortnight the second annual Australian Type-In, to be held in Brisbane around March 9. Preliminary planning for this is already underway and it is hoped that for next year's Type-In, we will be joined by Typospherian Natalie Tan ("natslaptaps") from Darwin. Other Australian Typospherians who attended the inaugural event at the Breakfast Creek Pub last March 10 were Scott Kernaghan ("The Filthy Platen"), John Lavery ("McTaggarts Typewriter Workshop"), Steve Snow ("The Impatient Typewriter Mechanic") and Rino Breebaart ("The long slow {typecast} blog").

I have an idea Jasper Lindell ("DIAHTENSOR") might be overseas at that time, but I wonder if any other Australian typewriter enthusiasts will be able to make it? You won't ever regret making the effort to be there!

What a Happy Christmas for Me! It's Here! The Masspro!

I got the call at 4pm this afternoon, less than two hours ago, that a large parcel had arrived for me from Germany. The anxious three weeks-long wait was over!

By 4.10, having driven like Stirling Moss in British racing green, I was at the West Deakin Post Office. Yes! Writ large on the side of the box was that magic word:

I instantly took the Masspro out of the box and drove straight around the corner to a friend. "This," I said, proudly holding it aloft (gee, it's light!) "is what all the fuss has been about."

"Oh," she said. "It's so lovely!"

It sure is!

There had been, I must confess, unnerving moments during the past three weeks, moments when I thought this wonderful day would never arrive. Thomas Kramer had sent an email on November 27 to say the Masspro was on its way, and included a tracking number. But "no such number" kept coming up on the DHL website. Still, I never lost faith.

So, a HUGE THANK YOU to:

Thomas Kramer of Fritzlar,

Fritz Niemann of the Galerie Alte Technik, Dissen,

and most especially to

HERMAN PRICE, of the Chestnut Ridge Typewriter Museum, Fairmont, West Virginia.

They have combined to make this possible and to give a "Down Under" typewriter collector the very best Christmas present he could ever wish to get. 

Is it holly green, ivy green or mistletoe green? Who cares?

It's CHRISTMAS GREEN!

To my utter astonishment, I first saw - indeed, first became aware of - the Masspro portable typewriter at the Chestnut Ridge Typewriter Museum on Friday, October 11. It was love at first sight. But I was pretty quickly made aware that to hold one of my own would be difficult, to say the very least. And yet here it is, just nine weeks later!

This has been a monster week for me - everything seems to have been going right since last Friday (more on that later). No sooner had I unpacked the Masspro and photographed it than, at 4.48pm, the "Baggy Green" wearers of Australia regained the greatest trophy in cricket, the Ashes, after a wait of four years, three months and 25 long days. (Australia beat England by 150 runs in the Third Test to take an unassailable 3-0 lead in the series.) I'm certain Herman will forgive me, at this time, mixing the joy of typewriters with the joys of sport!

Although the wait for the Masspro to arrive from Fritzlar did at times seem interminable, once I had unpacked it and started to type with it (immediately, as Typospherians will appreciate) it seemed to me like the end of a wait of 65 years, eight months and 12 days. This typewriter and I were meant to be together. This is destiny!

It was fascinating to type with it, to watch its unusual mechanics in action, to look at its incredibly compact design (by George Francis Rose) at such close range, to begin to work out its various levers and its multitude of quirks. Oh what fun I have ahead of me!

There was an especially nice touch from Thomas, with the parcel label TYPEWRITTEN!