Slopbait

These screenshots come from a YouTube video titled "10 Antique Typewriters in Your Attic Worth a Fortune! (Most People Don't Know What They Have)." The whole thing is AI-generated. It doesn't pretend to be anything else, but I still think it's deeply misleading. I expect a few newbies will watch this video and fail to realize that many of the machines shown on it are nothing but hallucinations.

Yes, I'd be happy to find any of these typewriters—if they existed!

The AI has gotten very good at creating texture, lighting, and parts of real typewriters, but the way they're put together is just statistically plausible fantasy. 

Unfortunately, it's very easy and cheap to generate something like this now, and hope for a little payoff. This video joins the AI-generated book about typewriter collecting whose "author" whines that "I’m just trying to feed these kids and my Pomeranian."

I think we need a new term for this kind of product. I propose slopbait.

 

Get Victorian with me

This is a typewriter typeface?? Yes! It's listed in a 1939 Varityper catalogue as “Diacritical”— but I think a better name for it is “Varityper Ornate.” 

Want to type with it? You can. It’s a new free download from the fonts section of The Classic Typewriter Page.

Psst: Here's the whole catalogue, helpfully scanned by Brian D.

Typewriter ribbon inking machine

Now that Charlene Oesch of Baco Ribbons has passed away, many in the typosphere have been wondering what will become of her rare typewriter-inking equipment. I can report that it will not be junked; there is a likely buyer, and there are back-up takers in the wings. Now whoever gets these machines will just have to figure out how to run them—because Charlene never wrote up instructions or filmed herself using them.

I have never witnessed the process of inking ribbons until today. Jett Morton shared a video taken by Theresa of Fine Line Ribbon in Ennis, Texas. It's published here by permission of them both. Isn't this neat??