“Can this be real?”

I couldn't ask for a nicer unsolicited book review from a reader in Chicago.

Meanwhile, this arrived. Notable mainly for the medium of communication!

The great West Virginia typewriter meeting of 2015

A few highlights from today's big meeting.

There was a good crowd this morning for various presentations, including mine about my book:

Our gracious and loquacious host, Herman Price:

All eyes turn to Gabe Burbano, winner of this year's QWERTY Award for excellence in promoting typewriters:

Peter Weil describes his conservation process for his Universal Crandall No 3.

The results:

Bob Aubert showed us a Hammond for use by the blind. Its original owner won a Hammond typing contest in 1904.

This is a poor photo, but you can see the six special keys with raised rings that served as home keys for the blind user:

Bryan Kravitz of Philly Typewriter Repair gave us all copies of a fun brochure on typewriter care that he wrote in the '80s. You can download a PDF of it here. 

Brian Brumfield told us about his experiments casting replacement parts, such as Hermes knobs and Smith-Corona carriage release levers. The general moral: flat parts are easy, complex 3D parts are not.

Dave and Will Davis showed us their "Harry A. Smith" Victor and pointed out that many "outlier" features of typewriters — parts or characteristics that seem surprising for the time when they were made — probably were added when the machines were rebuilt. Just one rebuilder had rebuilt over 300,000 Underwoods by the mid-1920s.

Plenty of typewriters came out of trunks and were swapped and sold before rain came along:

Here's a Remington made in Italy and branded Commodore:

There were several Underwood electrics lying around:

These delicate, feather-light typewriters make excellent laptops:

Above, Ian Brumfield is practicing for the five-minute speed typing competition. We were given a text about Herman's ancestor Henry Francisco, who supposedly joined the army at age 91 and lived well past 100. I managed to edge out Ian by just a couple of words per minute, working on the Purple Prose Producer:

The PPP was also an entrant in the beauty contest, but it didn't get far.

The beauty contest winner was Herman's restored experimental Remington Telegrapher.

Finally, I had a good talk about minds and machines with Oliver fan and fellow philosophy professor Marty Rice, who brought this wonderful ad I hadn't seen before:

That sure is an aggressive writing machine!

To West Virginia!

Let's go to West Virginia!

What's in West Virginia?

Oh, just a few typewriters ...

Herman Price is hosting his yearly collectors' meeting at his Chestnut Ridge Typewriter Museum.

I've already seen things of great beauty ...

And names never seen before ...

It's going to be a great day.

Waynesville! Party time! Excellent!

Price unknown:

$48.50 -10% cash discount:

$75:

$45:

Waynesville School House:

Reduced to $25, -10% off:

Museum at the Friends House:

$48:

$40:

$145:

Price unknown:

Isn't this house peculiar looking?

A fine day for a drive:

A sneak peek at my book