So I took a road trip to Detroit this week on some personal business, and decided to check the local Craigslist and antique shops for any cool typewriters. Everything I found was either too expensive, or too messed up to bother with.

Meanwhile, I received a text from a friend back in my hometown. They were at a garage sale and had come across some typewriters and wanted to know if I was interested in any. They sent me a photo. My eyes were immediately drawn to the Voss in the upper middle, but I was also interested in the Smith Corona Classic 12, and the small blue Brother. They had "best offer" on them, and $20 on the Smith Corona...


I was expecting them to want eBay prices, but they were actually open to letting all three go for $50, which I thought was reasonable. The unfortunate story behind all of these typewriters is that they were being sold by the brother of the previous owner, who is now incapacitated. His brother is deaf, and collected many things through the years, until someone broke into his home one night, beat him up with a crowbar, and stole $140 from his wallet. A sad story, and amazing that something like that can happen in our "civilized" society.





I picked them up the next day, and spent some time cleaning and adjusting them. The Smith Corona Classic 12 is very unique. It has a typeface that is GARGANTUAN. See image below...

The Smith Corona still needs some work to get it in tip-top shape, but the Voss was another story.

I decided to dismantle the Voss to get it working again. Many of the typewriter arms were bent, and not working properly. I spent quite some time adjusting, and finally got everything working. These are pretty impressively engineered machines. The sides pull off like a clamshell so you can work on it. I found it more difficult to adjust than some of my other typewriters, but in the end got it working great. It also has a very interesting typeface, "Pica-Imperial 16", which looks like a book typeface.