Rushwarp, I'm not sure what you mean by 'taking typewriters' (or indeed antiques generally) 'seriously'. What makes you think I don't? And I think you might be oversimplifying a bit. 

For one thing, I was - and I think so was Beak - trying to say that there are many different reasons for wanting a thing, or wanting it to be like a certain thing. You seem to be assuming that someone wants to be doing the thing that you are doing, and isn't doing it right. I'm positing that they might be doing a different thing entirely.

For one thing, the Imperial Good Companion is not a rare antique machine. Frankly, at least where I am, it's common as muck. Obviously one in good condition is more valuable than an ordinary bashed-up one, but they are more or less everywhere. You're hardly 'destroying the value' of a machine worth about £30 by sprucing it up a bit. You can't just say 'THIS is what collectors like', when on this forum alone there are people doing all kinds of stuff with typewriters. It's a bit patronising to everyone who has a different set of interests from you. 

I have a friend, in fact the Typewriterman of this board, who restores machines to as-new condition on commission for films, museums, etc. I was thinking he might be interested in the restoration job on that Good Companion. And Richard Polt, typewriter collector extraordinaire, who has literally written the book on it, recently blogged a set of printable and usable typewriter key letters he had made for a restoration job he was doing. So there's that. 

Restoration is common. Museums don't just let things decay, or leave them broken unless the breakage is the point. You can't just cling to the the dirt of yesteryear... Additions, alterations - people USE things. I live near a house that was built in the 16th century for one of Henry VIII's courtiers. It was added to and remodelled in the 18th century, and there were other works over the years - it's no longer a 'pure' 16th century house (though it still has its very fine linenfold panelling). But that's okay, isn't it? The story of those additions is the story of people through time. A friend of mine used to go to parties in there, back in the 80s when it was being lived in by dozens of squatters.

My best friend is a textile conservator, and the question of how, and how much, you intervene is very  much a live one. You have to use new threads - sometimes new backing fabric, dyed to match. She actually dyes everything to an exact match, imagine having the skill to do that. And does amazing things with sheer net, invisible seams, etc, so that (for example) totally decayed silks look plausibly whole again. At least they're protected from further damage. Right now she's working on some royal 17th century underwear for a major institution. Should they just let it (and along with it, perhaps, part of our knowledge of how people used to dress) decay? 

I'm also reminded of a lovely cream stoneware bowl I have, from the 1820s, with a little pouring spout on it. I use it around the kitchen. 

As for trying it on with the price, well, either someone will buy that machine or they won't. This is definitely the time of year to try.

 

KatLondon wrote:

Sure, the price is stupidly high - but in all fields of collecting, the value is pretty much whether that's the thing someone wants times what you can get for it. The price here is not for an old, common-or-garden IGC. It's for a time machine, an as-new, shiny, pristine IGC that you can imagine you've just bought a typewriter shop in the Strand, late one December afternoon in 1936. You've declined the assistant's offer to wrap it. As you walk about into the teeming, dark street, with its crowds of pedestrians, omnibuses and even a few horses, the typewriter is heavy - but it's good and solid and it's just what you need. It looks almost too new - it smells almost too new - but there's nothing you can do about that for now, and you reflect that at least it lends an appearance of prosperity. A fog is beginning to settle and the street lights glow feebly. Lyons Corner House is right across the street, brightly lit and welcoming with a promise of tea; you can see the Nippies moving among the tables, and there was that sweet girl you liked the look of the other day; but there's no time for that now. You pull down the brim of your hat, turn up the collar of your greatcoat, and brace yourself for the meeting with Abercrombie. Nothing for it but to leave Lyons and the lovely Nell behind, and head for Fleet Street, new leather handle held tightly in your hand...

Did you just toss that off? It's like Time and Again, only better. And its beauty is only enhanced by the second bottle of Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA, a blend of delicious flavor and the universal solvent which takes the hard edges off life and leaves the beauty visible. Will he go back and get the girl though after he meets with his editor? Why did he bring a new typewriter to the meeting?

Repartee, I'm not at all sure that Abercrombie IS his editor...  it's all very mysterious.

And thanks! Yes, I love Time and Again too, I still have the copy I read when I was about 17.  It's funny though, that book, because he builds his effect on this idea that 80 years ago is a really long time, the fabrics are all faded, etc. I guess in NYC terms that is true - though you should look for a book called Golden Hill, by Francis Spufford. It's set in the fledgling NYC in 1746! A romp. Great fun. 

I know this is off topic, but that bit of London, the top end of Waterloo Bridge - river behind you, Covent Garden up ahead, Strand to the left, Fleet Street to the right - it's a place I really love. It's like a nexus for me. I thought of having the typewriter shop be somewhere like Cheapside, but then I thought - no... I'm not sure there even WAS one in the Strand, but there must have been. Glad you liked it. I convinced myself!  

& btw, of course the restored typewriter is ridiculous and so is the price, but if someone does love it it will be for the reason outlined in my little vignette, and thus it's kind of nothing to do with us. We want one for a fiver that we can blow the mouse bones out of and get to work on. And I'm always very interested in our relationship with the objects of the past. We live in them, for one thing. Men now dead laid our bricks in place and then went home for dinner, lathed the moulding on our window frames... I always think of that. It doesn't mean we don't get the wall repointed if it needs it.  

and it does look high quality, too. The seller has gone the full mile to deliver the goods. I love your story idea.

Another school of thought here, not meaning to shred anything to pieces because that's not my intent, is does this thing actually work?  Could the original ribbon in it, eighty-someodd years old, still have ink moist enough to leave an impression on a piece of paper as a typebar hits it?  If, Rushwarp, this machine cannot, and the ribbon was unchanged from the time it left the factory, the purity of the typewriter was maintained (along with other evidence).  If, however, this typewriter has had a recent ribbon change, and the mechanicals were oiled, cleaned, and well-maintained--by your standards, the machine has gone way down in value.  So my question is:  Is this typewriter more valuable if it DOESN'T work than if it DOES?  You can't just put such a typewriter in a vacuum for eighty-odd years and expect it to be able to produce a clean, clear copy without SOME kind of maintenance done to it.  It's a machine, and machines need care, cleaning, oiling, adjusting, and that TLC that helps them perform those functions to which they were designed to perform--or else they just stove up and become worthless pieces of scrap iron.