Tower of No Power

Back to the Bizarro World From Whence You Came!

 Again I found myself in Downtown Lufkin, looking at the same old antique and thrift stores. I thought it would afford me the opportunity to get a better look at the same old broken typewriters. The Tower Tabulator in particular stirred my interest. It's such a clean, good-looking typewriter, I wanted to see if they'd managed to put a price sticker on it. They hadn't. I hit the keys and nothing happened again. Well, not nothing. The ribbon vibrator functioned as intended, but the letter arms wouldn't budge. I tried to work a few of them and they were very hard to move at all. I moved one on the end and noticed it wasn't connected to anything. It feels like they are glued in place but I doubt this. Someone probably just put a dubious lubricant on this thing decades ago and it's frozen in time. Even if there was a price on it, I'm no typewriter repairman, and these '50s Smith-Coronas (Tower typewriters for the most part being rebadged S-Cs sold in Sears stores) are usually pretty inexpensive. So inexpensive, in fact, that I have four or five of them already. Although it looks fantastic, I don't think it's worth more than $15-$20 in its current non-working state. If everything worked, I'd be willing to go as high as $45-$50, tops. I already have a battered but working Tower similar to this that I picked up for $20 last year at a thrift store.

There's just not much used typewriter action in this area. I don't think I'm the only one actively searching out old machines here, I couldn't possibly be. I was working on a story in the lobby before work the other day (I work in a fast-food restaurant) using my old Hermes Rocket when I was approached by an older gentleman who said he hadn't seen a typewriter in years. He seemed completely fascinated by it, like he was looking at some sort of space alien. I get a lot of those sorts of looks, but few people say anything.

I've been having a bit of a problem getting days off from work, and I have yet to hook up my flatbed scanner on this new computer, but I do plan on doing some good old fashioned typecasting on here. I have about a week to get all my stuff out of my storage unit unless I want to get charged $46 for another month, and I would like to rescue the typewriters and get them all back into service again. I'm way behind on my new story, "Moustache of Evil", that will be available for Amazon Kindle as soon as I can finish it. Who knows when that will happen, though.

Stick with me, keep checking back, and perhaps I'll get back to doing this on a more regular basis. Shouldn't be long until things get a bit more normal, whatever that means.

Typewriters on TV: Roseanne Finale

First, honesty: I despise Roseanne, and I never watched a second of it. Not my kind of TV. However, I was interested enough to look at a YouTube clip of the final scene where she's writing her memoirs on an old portable typewriter. Looks like a Royal to me, and elsewhere in the scene there's a tan case sitting on a metal folding chair that looks like it holds a Royal. This is the best shot of the typewriter in the scene. This was 1997 or so, and I thought it odd that she didn't use a computer like Doogie Howser. But then I remembered her character was poor, and they probably had that prop typewriter sitting around in her fictional garage since 1989.

I've noticed, perhaps not as much now, that the media perception of "serious" writers has been that they use real typewriters, even thirty years into the home computer age. Tim McGee on NCIS, for example, has long been writing his novel on an old manual typewriter. Jessica Fletcher of Murder, She Wrote used a giant machine on her kitchen table to pound out novels, even though she was obviously a millionaire and could have afforded a proper office and state-of-the-art (for 1984, anyway) word processing equipment.

My dad bought a Brother electric typewriter in the late-'70s and that was the first machine I wrote on, though my sister had a pretty blue Smith-Corona portable I remember seeing her use when I was a child. I bought a used Montgomery-Ward Signature 510 in 1988 and refused to use a computer for years (though, obviously, I buckled and bought my first PC in 1995). I like to think I would have been a better writer had I held out, and that the time spent on the internet dulled my abilities. Hard to say, because what happened happened.

To be honest, I find it very difficult to write on a typewriter now. I'd like to. I love pounding the keys and hitting the return lever when the bell rings, but I find myself getting frustrated when I hit the wrong key or my thumb gets in the way. I've become too conditioned to the computer keyboard, which is sad to me. I can go back and delete things easily without wasting paper, and I don't have to re-type anything when I'm done, just copy and paste. But it doesn't seem right. I think we've lost something.

I have many typewriters (in fact, another one arriving today by UPS), but they seem like decoration sometimes...like furniture, which they are not. They serve a useful purpose and it's not fully realized sitting in a case for thirty years or on a shelf gathering dust. The computer is not the same, not at all. I'd like to train myself to use a typewriter again for serious long-form writing if it's not too late to do so.

If computers haven't spoiled me forever, that is.

Typewriters on TV: Kolchak the Night Stalker

Hard to tell exactly what machine Kolchak is using. I suspect a Smith-Corona Secretarial, but I have been and am regularly proven wrong about almost everything. It does happen.

No Auction Action

This was the eBay auction item I made a bid on yesterday, an Undewood Golden Touch. Didn't win, lost out at the last moment by 50 cents. Probably just as well, because it came without a case. It had come up before and I missed out on it because no one bid and it was re-listed at $19.99. It's similar to the one I got in the mail yesterday except for the color and the gold faceplate above the keys, and I already have a '55 Underwood in this color. Anyway, no biggie. They're plentiful, and I'll get one of these eventually.

The Day No Typewriters Would Grow

Sometimes you just can't win. Spotted this pretty Sears Tower Tabulator (Smith-Corona rebadge) at an antique store in Lufkin, Texas today. There was no price on it, and the wobbly typewriter table it was on was marked $20. However, when you hit the keys, nothing happens. The ribbon vibrator moves up but none of the keys do anything. Assuming they were stuck, I worked one of the letters up, but the keys didn't move. They don't seem to be attached to anything. Bummer.

Royal (Safari? I didn't pay attention to the model name, should have). Nice condition....yes....works fine...yes...$30....yes. BUT. It's cursive script. I have no use for a script typewriter and I'm not in the business to try and sell them. Doesn't seem worth it.

Nice big Remington here. Works well as far as I can tell, seems to pass all the functionality tests (but didn't check the bell, which I normally do). My interest waned when I got a load of the $65 price tag. It's probably worth it, if you've got room for another huge typewriter (I don't) and if you have $65 to throw around (which I do, but don't...you know what I'm saying). If this was a $35 typewriter, we'd talk. It's certainly beautiful, I'll grant you that, and I'd love to have it. I just don't have the space for my own neglected mechanical children. I'm not ready to adopt again.

Here's to Future Days

This Royal Sabre I "won" on eBay. Meaning, I was the only bidder and it has to come to me via UPS on a truck, and for that pleasure I spent $30+ dollars. I don't care, because I have long wanted one of these. In fact, hours after I won this auction I saw a similar one at a local antique store for $30 but was turned off when I found it was a cursive script model. If I was just getting it just for display purposes that would be fine, but I try to use all my typewriters (hard to do when you have 40+, I admit) and I already have two cursive machines (an Olivetti Lettera 32 and a Remington Personal Riter) that don't see much action. Aside from that one, every other typewriter I saw there cost $65, and none of them were worth it. Gaudy and tactless as it appears, I await the arrival of this one with great interest.

A Kind of Madness

As near as I can tell, this is a 1958-ish Underwood Golden Touch Jewell, a beautiful machine that arrived today. Damn near flawless and beautiful, save for a bell that doesn't always catch. Very clean, and well worth the $10 (plus shipping) it cost me. I had sworn off buying more typewriters, you know. But then I bought this one, and another one, and have a bid on yet another that ends in a few hours. Also, my mom's boyfriend died recently and I inherited a Smith-Corona electric from him. I don't even know what my total is now. 41? 42? Somewhere in there. Most of my machines remain in storage, but my intention is to free them by the first of February and get back to doing this blog on a more regular basis. I also have several stories in the works and hope to have something new on Amazon in a few days. I'll be in touch, because it looks like a big week ahead.