Farewell, My Typewriter Summer

Farewell, my obsessive typewriter-hoarding summer. I'll still love and enjoy the ones I have, but my buying spree has ended. I began the summer with one machine and I currently have eight. With the coming weeks I'll have three more, for a final tally of eleven. These have all been paid for and are making their way to me though the U.S. postal system.

Here's a rundown in order of purchase, for those keeping score:

01. '60s Sears (Smith-Corona) Citation 12 ("Typie")
02. 1948 Remington Rand Portable Deluxe ("Ignatius")
03. 1955 Underwood Universal Quiet Tab ("Sam")
04. '50s Smith-Corona Skyriter ("Mr. McMahon")
05. '50s Hermes Rocket ("Sigmund")
06. '60s Olivetti Lettera 32 ("Rusty")
07. 1958 Royal (Montgomery-Ward) Heritage ("Dirty Harry")
08. '70s Olivetti Lettera 35 ("Pablo")

The three in the system (which I bought instead of that $150 Android smartphone I was looking at) haven't arrived yet, but I'll list them here for reference purposes. Any day now the first of them should be arriving, and they'll be presented here and given their (probably Italian stereotyped) nicknames.

09. '60s Olivetti-Underwood 21
10. '60s Underwood-Olivetti Studio 44
11. '40s Underwood Standard

I look forward to getting to know these machines and cleaning and installing ribbons. It's something I really enjoy doing. They're much larger and less portable than the machines I've been using, particularly the Underwood Standard, so it's a matter of making a little space available. The Standard was a very heavy office machine (about 30 pounds), and there's no case for it, but I got a good deal and I've developed a strong affection for Underwoods in particular. I like the way they feel and type (the '55 Underwood is the single best typewriter I've ever used).

Olivetti bought Underwood in the late '50s, so the other two machines I bought are from the studio series...very similar inside but different in outward appearance. Tennessee Williams used an Olivetti Studio 44, which looks like a larger, heavier version of the Lettera 22/32. Excited to get the typewriters and hope to have some good news the next time I post something here.