I have to admit, I do actually like the silver ribbon on the black paper. Reminds me of the Halloween arts and crafts I used to do in Kindergarten with black construction paper and white crayon (maybe a spooky idea now that Halloween is right around the corner?).

I've seen these typewriters on Ebay, selling for quite a bit due to them being American and not English. Always thought they were a prop, or, at the very least, only just functional for what they were being marketed for (wedding guestbooks). All I can think of is how many decent vintage machines you could get for that hefty price. That silver ribbon looks lovely, however!

Yes, the silver ribbon was from Michael's.  They run $9.99, but I used a coupon for 40% off. The ribbons are very short (18 feet).  All of the Michael's ribbons seem to be bi-color. I put it in with the silver side up because I mainly wanted to use the silver on black paper and I didn't want the vibrator to have to be moving the max distance for pages of typing (writing pen-pal letters). The ribbon spools appear to be the same top and bottom, so I suppose you could say I've loaded it 'upside down' if you assume black should always be on the top and the other color should always be on the bottom

I was in a Michael's on the weekend and wanted to have a look at the Chinese made typewriters, but they didn't have one on display (I presume they discovered what an enthusiastic kid can do to a machine in a matter of minutes (I was going to write unsupervised kid, but we all know there are parents out there who would not intervene if their kid was busy destroying something in a store).

However, I did have a close look at the ribbons and just couldn't justify spending $13 (in Canada) on a quarter-length of ribbon no matter how interesting the colour combinations were. I would go through such a ribbon far too quickly and I would feel as ripped off as if I was buying ink for my computer printer.

I wonder that with the resurgence of typewriter appreciation bringing back the manufacture of manual typewriters, is it even possible to make a typewriter that matches the precision quality of the older ones we know and love?  The print specimens I see on this We R Memory Keepers machine and the Royal Scrittore II look like someone was trying to type while riding on a bulldozer.  I have not used either machine.  I'm just going by what other users have said, and what I see of the print.  These manufacturers are encountering teething bugs in their tooling, or they thought they had a way of making typewriters for pennies on the dollar from what they used to cost to make, thereby realizing a broader profit margin.  Besides, they didn't figure the people who bought these machines would really be too critical about their print quality.  But then isn't it the way of most Chinese merchandise?  It's cheaper, yes, but didn't we opt for economy over quality?  Maybe they put the same philosophy into manufacturing typewriters--after all, most people use computers, don't they?