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Monday, April 22, 2019

Melancholy safari

This eerie factory on Cincinnati's West Side sums up my current mood.



"LUNKENHEIMER: The One GREAT Name in Valves"

My peregrinations through the city and neighboring towns on Saturday yielded a few typewriter sightings:

$125 for a Brother-made Sears portable, "as seen on Etsy for $275." No, at that price I certainly will "Not Play with typwriter."

$25 for this Smith-Corona Silent with a disconnected "I" typebar link and a bit of rust. The case is missing some hardware and is not quite like any SC case I've seen before; it's like the '50s "Holiday" cases, but is made of brown plastic. 

$75 for a wide-carriage Underwood no. 6 with a dealer's ad in an unusual place.

$85 for the notorious "Satanic" Brother-made Remington, the 666. 

$34 for this L.C. Smith Super-Speed that has seen happier days.

$125 for a wide-carriage Royal.

$175 for this "rare" olive-green L.C. Smith Secretarial.

Being a cheapskate, I bought the $25 Smith-Corona. It can be restored to support WordPlay.


7 comments:

  1. Great sightings, thanks for sharing! And great choice - the finish on that Smith-Corona looks to be in fantastic shape, a steal assuming the repair required is limited to that one key.

    I would have been very tempted to bargain on that Remington 666 simply because it is a re-brand of that typewriter that I have read about but have never seen in person. The last gasp of the Remington name perhaps?

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  2. I think I'd have let the Silent follow me home. All the rest were way over priced.

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  3. Given what I can see of it, $75 for the Underwood No. 6 doesn't seem like too much. But I also would have picked up the Silent. Seems like a steal.

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  4. Lunkenheimer Valves - would you actually trust them?

    $25 SC 5 Series is a buy every time. You know you won’t spend a lot of time on it and someone will eventually love it.

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  5. I enjoyed the perusal. Good choice on the one purchase.

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  6. "Lunkenheimer" is what my Mom used to call me after I showed her my report card.

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