Hi Jimmy, 

I suppose I could have begun learning to write better earlier than I did. Sadly it wasn’t until I began to think about leaving the workplace along with maintaining mental acuity while aging. Now at age 70 after working in heavy excavation construction for 50 years arthritis has decided to make some activities difficult to nearly impossible. During the height of the work season there would be days of 10-12 hours gripping a steering wheel and control levers. That said all my penpals are between 60 and 80 and none of them ran equipment and all have mentioned arthritic hand issues. Only one has chosen to write with a typewriter while the rest are still using pens. Thankfully I’ve been reading their cursive for long enough that I can usually decipher what was written. They all like reading my typed pages so perhaps one day the spirit might move them. 

It seems at the moment that striking typewriter keys straight down-ish while typing allows me to use any of my machines tot write with. Should the manual machines get to be a problem I have a number of electrics. When I wrote with FPs it was fun to use many of the inked pens for one letter. Now it is equally fun to do the same with typewriters. Write on! 

George

Hi all,

My name is John and I recently joined this forum. I watched the documentary movie, California Typewriter, late last year and expressed my interest to my wife in maybe getting one like Tom Hanks said would be the one if he could only have one. My wife then bought me  my first typewriter for Christmas last year which is a 1954 Smith-Corona Silent Super in Sapphire Gray with green keys/stripes/trim and elite font type. She bought it off Etsy for $100 plus shipping. The machine and it’s Holiday Case were in amazing condition and only required a little cleaning. I added a fresh ribbon in blue and green ink to go with the green trim.

Very recently, I purchased my 2nd typewriter, a 1960 Smith-Corona 5TE Portable Electric in Desert Sand with   ivory/tan keys, spacebar and trim. This one was purchased for $50 off Facebook Marketplace and picked up locally. This one works perfectly but has some minor blemishes mostly on the front section below the spacebar and also is missing the metal pull pin cap/nut or whatever it’s called on the left platen roller knob that releases the variable line spacer. Trying to figure out where to source one without buying another typewriter for parts.

 I’m really enjoying learning all about these, working on them and sending correspondences to people who haven’t received anything typewritten in many years. It’s fun and satisfying. 

I’m thinking I may be satisfied with just these two, but if I were to expand, I would be looking into a Hermes 3000 from the ‘50’s to early ‘60’s and/or an Olympia SM3, but I also just enjoy reading about and seeing all the beautiful machines I’ve been seeing on this forum.

Hello from Germany.

I just bought my first typewriter. I read a lot of topics in the last few days while I was cleaning and inspecting my Olympia sm2. 
 
Congrats to this great forum. Seems to be a great combination of nice people and lots of information. 

 

TheLetter wrote:

Hello from Germany. 

Hello from Kanada. Welcome to the forum!

Hello from Europe!

I live in Germany as well, and I recently acquired my first typewriter.
It's nothing special (an Underwood 5 from 1911), but I like it very much.

More typewriters to come, so I get the feeling I will have to ask some questions from time to time. ;)