SirChill wrote:

Hello all, I'm new to the forum.

My name is Charles and I live in Texas, USA. I got into typewriters about a year ago when someone sent me some correspondence typed out on an Olivetti Lettera. It just looked so cool that I had to get a manuel typewriter for myself. I hopped onto craigslist and someone had just posted an 1923 Royal 10 with the split window for $30. I didn't know much about old manual typewriters at the time (I guess I still really don't) but other than being dusty, none of the keys were stuck, the spacebar worked, the carriage moved, and the bell went ding, so I bought it. The typewriter turned out to be in really really good condition and it was the last good find I had here in my area. I've since had the rubber replaced on the platen & rollers, and the Royal 10 is still my main typewriter.
I also have a little gray 1950s Hermes Baby which is in really good shape (aside from the bottom not being grippy enough), and I have a skywriter and 1970s smith corona that both need some work.  Eventually I'd like to track down: a newer Hermes rocket/baby in seafoam green with the longer carriage return lever & ribbon color selector; an early-to-mid 1930s flat-topped Smith Corona Silent in maroon; a Lettera 22; and a Corona 4 in blue or green.
So what drew me into typewriters (aside from creating cool-looking correspondence)? I work as a data analyst, spend a huge portion of my day at a computer, am a heavy user of modern technology, and feel like I just want to unplug occasionally, go with a little old school tech. The typewriter has a great tactile feel and response that lets me do that. Combine the typewriter with using snail mail for letters, and its like I'm "back in the olden days" as my kids would say.

​Congratulations on your Model 10.  It's also my favorite as well.  I agree on the technology thing, it is good to just unplug once in awhile and even a break from the internet is hard but so worth it once you get past the 3rd day. Some writers like the idea of thinking before typing, no correction feature short of starting the copy all over again.  You might enjoy going through a typing instruction manual.  It's fascinating, but the Rowe College Typing for example is a system of gradual skill building for speed and accuracy following a designed progress of eye/hand and left/right coordination.  You don't always know it but through their word choice and sentence structure things with typing start becoming automatic and then it's really fun because it becomes second nature to type.  Anyway, good luck on your venture.
 

Hello. My name is Colin and I live in Dayton, OH. I am literally brand new to this hobby ( obsession?). I'll tell you a little about my limited experience with typewriters...

I was born in 1975 and went to elementary school in the 80s. Somewhere toward the end of first grade, we were all given I.Q. tests. They must have been impressed with mine because I was immediately enrolled in the "gifted program." We met once a week at another elementary school. The teachers were cool and let us explore and express ourselves. It was in this program that I was first introduced to typewriters. They had us keep journals and in one of the classrooms were about a dozen or more old typewriters. Now this would have been circa 1983-85. We all had to write journal entries and they encouraged us to use these typewriters. The high school was less than a block away and about once a month we got to go use the dozen or so Apple II computers they had there. In retrospect, I'm sure they were having us use typewriters so that we could get used to the keyboard layout because computers were "the wave of future" and they wanted us to have a leg up on the other students. I can't recall the specific brands, but there were quite a few manuals from the 60s & 70s, even one or two electrics. But what was I drawn to? The big heavy desktop from the 1920s. More than likely an Underwood No. 5. It was heavy, had the round glass keys, the whole nine yards. Even as an 8 - 10 year old kid, I knew what I liked. After 5th grade, we no longer spent 1 day a week outside of our school. The program was held for one period a day in our middle school and later high school. I never touched another typewriter again (save for my mom's late 60s electric briefly to add text to my adolescent hand drawn comics now and then.

Fast forward to last month. Perusing ebay, I came across a listing for an antique cash register.

"Wow. Really cool. But at $1500, it's a bit too spend for me. Besides, what would I actually DO with it?"

But one of the related items was an antique typewriter, so I put in the search...

"Hey... These things are cool! And A LOT cheaper than a cash register, plus I can WRITE on one of these."

So I browsed Craigslist and found a 1928 Royal Portable with green crackle paint. I picked it up for $100. Unfortunately, it had not been stored properly and the rollers had MELTED onto the platoon. Ugh. Fortunately for me, I only live about an hour away from typewriter guru and author of the book "The Typewriter Revolution", the incomparable Richard Polt. After he got his hands on it, it worked like a dream. I've been using it ever since and I've gotten back into writing fiction like I did when I was a kid. I've written more on that little Royal in the past few weeks than I have on the computer in decades. Picked up a 1936 Underwood Universal a few weeks later and will probably be picking up an Underwood No. 5 next week. As you might have gleaned from above, I'm really only interested in machines from the 1920s - 30s. All metal, glass keys, the whole shebang. Sorry if this was a bit long winded, but I'm not known for brevity when speaking about one of my passions, even when it's new.

I would imagine dough and powdered sugar are not very conducive to the inner workings of a cash register. Lol. Sounds like you're learning a lot and having some fun with your repairs. I'd eventually like to learn that too, but for now I'm content to let my focus be writing on them. Cheers.

Welcome to the forum, Portlandia. 

​"MonkeyWard" is a new one for me; is that what Montgomery Ward machines are known as south of the border? The only Ward I have is a Signature 511D, which of course is a private label Brother, and I think it's a fantastic machine.

​As for the crinkle paint, I would toss that question into the Repairs sub-forum. The answer will depend on whether you want to just touch up the machine or repaint it completely.

My wife says her father would often say, when seeing an example of bad driving, "Where'd you get your license, MonkeyWard's?"