My Grey Royal Quiet De Luxe, x704

I've found it harder and harder to keep up with this blog because one, I'm trying to go cold turkey on buying typers. The good thing is I have no car in NYC so I no longer can go on weekend (or weekday,  for that matter) adventures for typewriters. And avoiding Ebay for now. When the addiction isn't in the forefront, I forget about the blog unless I spot one in the wild. I've also had to refrain from reading the typosphere too much at one time, fearing it may inflame the addiction which is currently in remission (but damn, it's gonna be a lot of catch up!).

   However, I do want to try to commit to writing some thing at least weekly here if not only for discipline's sake. I was going to typecast but realized my scanner isn't working properly, perhaps damaged from the move. But luckily, I scanned a bunch before my move cross country, knowing I would need to put most of my collection in storage. I was only able to bring a handful of typers which is quite ridiculous for a regular person. They were all in boxes until recently. The weather got cold enough that I had to unpack my winter clothes and I found two in the box. One I remember packing, the other, I completely forgot about. It was a nice surprise. Kinda felt like Christmas morning! It was my grey Royal Quiet Deluxe. 

   I've been typing on it all week. Got some decent writing done on it. I do love this clacker model. I don't have an emotion attachment to this one like I did with Rusty, but it's growing on me. It doesn't type great, but it works fine. I didn't clean it at all and stuff is falling onto my desk the more I use it.

   I've decided to leave the other ones in boxes still and perhaps surprise myself at later dates.

Typewriter Review : Dueling Skyriters

I decided to have a shoot out, or type off, between two different models of the Smith Corona Skywriter. On the right corner, we have a grey skywriter 4Y series. On the left corner, we have a tan skywriter 3Y series. I think both machines were manufactured in the 60s by their serial numbers, but the 3Y is from the 1950s design.

The 3Y won hands down. It invited me to type more, and I like that quality in a typer. I wouldn't have stopped if I hadn't reached the end of the paper.  I can't wait to actually write a few pages on this at a later date. And I did find myself a 2Y, but it was a fixer-upper and it's proven harder than I imagined. I'll post more on that as I figure it out!

Typewriter Review: Royal Quiet de Luxe x110

Meet Rusty, a Royal Quiet de Luxe

Since I mentioned Rusty yesterday, I thought I'd introduce him to the Typoshpere. If the Consul 232 was my Garbo, then this is my Bogart, rough and tough. I can't really explain what happened at the estate sale. There were around 200 machines filled in four rooms, most all had fresh ribbons and paper in them from people testing it all weekend. I bounced around all the rooms looking for the perfect typer, but wherever I went, I saw this guy being moved from room to room, table to table, table to floor, corner to corner. No one wanted it and it kept getting shuffled from one place to another as things were being sold in the room. I finally went to it when I found it on the floor after the desk it was on was sold and carried off. It was like that stray dog hiding in a corner at a rescue. I lifted it up on to the table and examined it. The ribbon was missing and the vibrators were rusty. I turned it over and there were some rust spots but nothing that looked like destruction. I tapped all the keys and it seemed to work. Then I decided to find a ribbon and test it out. It typed. There wasn't much time left in the sale so I decided to buy it even though it had no case. I thought the worse case scenario, I could put it on my bookshelf as an ornament. But when I got home I actually really enjoyed typing on it. I could live with the extra help it needed to feed the paper. Of all my typewriters, I have the most bond with this one. Maybe because it sits in my room without a case so I see it everyday. The initials J.D.N. (or J.O.N. ) is carved into the space bar. And there is a Walker's Office Supplies label underneath it based in Fairfield, Iowa. I know I can date the machine with the serial number online, but what gets me the most, is the label's telephone number. It's two digits: 73,  which reminds me how old it actually is.

Typewriter Review: Consul 232

This is the portable Consul 232, light aqua blue. A purchase I probably shouldn't have made but you can read about it in the typecast. It's definitely eye-candy, the super model of my bunch. I'll include more of a review below.

   Firstly, I should type up my criteria for reviews of all my typewriters at one point as a page (I'll work on that). But mainly, I'm looking for the perfect typewriter. Of course this is subjective, so really it's a search for the perfect typewriter for me. I'm not a real collector since I do not look for collectibles of the antique variety which I'll categorize as the pre-war machines (at least not yet), but I'm a journeyman in the vintage type, which I'll categorize as post-war ones. Collecting was really a by-product of this search. The main objective of the search was to get me to write again, write more, and more consistently.  

  I had suffered a long writer's block, one that spanned a few years. This was the longest drought I had ever experienced. I thought I needed something to entice me to sit down and write again. When I was at the desk, I could write (mostly), but getting me there and committing the time was getting harder and harder.  I had adopted various tricks, mostly all self-deceits, but many of it worked. In 2010, I decided that a typewriter may just be the right "toy" to get me at the desk since a year or two delving into fountain pens seemed to run it's due course. During one odd night of insomnia, I wondered if old Selectrics were still around. I had always wanted one as a child. I checked on Craigslist that night and found one. I emailed the seller and got a response the next morning, and owned it by the afternoon. This idea and the typewriter worked well for me, but then I started wondering about manual typewriters and started looking it up on the internet and ebay. That's how I got hooked and the obsession started.

   I like the relationship with a typewriter. It brings me back to how I started writing (or maybe just of my youth) and I had forgotten the interaction one has with the machine. I feel it responding back to me as a writer with it's clacking, as if we are trading bars in music, improvising in jazz. It is tactile and responsive, both I found missing on the computer (and I went through a whole keyboard searching phase also!). When you're on a mental role, and you hear your typer clacking loudly and speedily behind you as if it's chasing you, it gives the writer in me a little excitement and momentum to keep pushing forward at an heightened pace. I forgot about this feeling. I don't get this from a computer. And besides, the computer screen was giving me brutal eyestrain.  

   Anyhow, that is a little backstory to my typewriter addiction. Maybe more bits and pieces of my strange writing process and experience will trickle down into this blog, but let's get back to the Consul 232.    

Yes, it was an "anger" purchase from a lost auction, but I do like the thing. It is in good to great condition. It is very... how do I say this... womanly? The color of course leans that way I think, but it's also very delicate and possesses beautiful curves.   It's very compact with a bottom panel which I like so I can type on my lap. The carriage is extremely light. I don't know if it's specific to this model or just to this machine. It's almost disturbingly too light for me because I don't feel any weight with the lever and fear I may swing it too hard to the right and damage the thing. Is it fragile? I'm not sure yet, but it isn't sturdy like the Royals and the Rocket. The keys and the touch is very light. I was very surprised how light it was, but unfortunately it uses carriage shift. Wicked heavy! But let me say, I've discovered I have a very weak or lazy left pinky (or both).  Here's where complete research could've saved me some money. I had read on Will Davis' site that Consul were early adaptors of basket shift for their portables so I jumped at the chance for this machine. But since I do not necessarily read in chronological order and finish reading everything completely, I didn't catch the later part where he points out that the ultra portables, which I call the laptops over the desktop portables, used a carriage shift. I only read that after I won the auction as the poor student I am!

   The keys are made of a light plastic with a wrinkles on the surface. I prefer smooth keytops. The alignment is straight and I do prefer a 12 pitch size. It has, however, a rather high pitched clack which I'm not a fan of. It isn't as bad as my Olympia SM 7 which literally pierces my eardrum. However, I'm starting to suspect the cause of such high pitchiness from a hardening platen. Please let me know if my hunch is correct.

   But like I said, she's the looker of my collection.  I do like photographing her. In fact, I realized this weekend that I may like photographing my typewriters more than I like typecasting with them. :) 

  

Here's a comparison of the Consul next to my weathered Royal Quiet de Luxe. The b/w for the design lines and color, well... for color! The blue really pops, doesn't it? His name is Rusty. She's not named yet.

Here's a close up with Garbo soft lighting and another for moodiness. There you go, maybe I'll name her Garbo!