A new frontier in fake typewriters

My eye was just caught by this item on eBay. 

It's a contemporary agglomeration based on an old clock and an Ideal-keyboard Hammond typewriter, like this one from Geoff Flash's collection.

The intricacy and oddity of the "typewriter" clock almost make me suspect that its design was generated by AI, but I think it's more likely that it was created by some Chinese designer who was looking for ways to appeal to the insatiable Western hunger for antiquity.

Tacky? Yes. Illogical? Yes. Nevertheless, kinda cool as yet another sign of the durable appeal of typewriters. Would you agree?

PS: If you want the object, go for it.

Phony typewriters hit a literary low

Yes, that's a "Govrland" phony on the cover of a Stephen King novel: Sie (She), the German translation of Misery. Credit goes to Rodja Pavlik for discovering this travesty. As he says, this thing isn't going to stop any Annie Wilkes.

Read more about the Govrland and other fake typewriters in other posts on this blog.

 

A fake Lego fake typewriter?

Everyone knows about the Lego typewriter by now. Only one typebar moves, but the keys go down and the carriage advances. It's a cute tribute to an increasingly popular device, but in a sense, it is a fake: it can't actually type.

Today I spotted a fake of this fake typewriter! Well, that's not quite fair. The makers of this Chinese knockoff have taken care to make it different from the original Lego in several ways. It has four rows of keys, for one.

I won't be getting either of these toys, but they do have their charm and I'm sure they will be fun to build for those who enjoy Lego-style construction.

Both of these things have a ways to go in catching up with Herman Price—check out his homemade Lego versions of historic typewriters.

PS: Here are some more, as found on AliExpress!

The continuing saga of the “Govrland"

Seen on eBay this morning:

Cool T-shirt, huh? Yes ... except that the typewriter looks so darn weird. What is that huge structure in front of the platen?

I know the answer, of course. This is yet another representation of a fake typewriter made in China, originally designed as a crude imitation of a Gourland. This silly thing has taken many forms over the years, even appearing as a tattoo on the skin of some hapless person who has obviously never used a real typewriter.

I'll take it as yet another sign of the enduring appeal of typewriters ... but I do wish artists would bother to do a little more research before they create yet another iteration of a phony.

PS: "Sincerily"?

Fresh (?) typewriters (?) from China (?)

Here are a couple of things I spotted online today.

First, in Dayton, Ohio (an hour away from me) there's an unused BNC for sale.



A what?

The BNC is an office-sized manual typewriter that surfaced briefly about 3 years ago. I believe it was made in China, but have no confirmation of its origin. Was it made after Godrej, in India, famously stopped manufacturing standard manuals in 2009? What was the origin of the BNC's mechanical design? Someone should buy it and study it. (Please don't make me do it....)



Meanwhile, on Alibaba I spotted this "vintage metal typewriter model for tissue box." If a fake Blickensderfer no. 8 isn't enough for you, maybe you'll go for this fake Blick 8 Kleenex dispenser!



It certainly makes me want to cry, either with laughter or with despair, I'm not sure which.

From fake to tattoo

By now, the typosphere is familiar with the fake typewriters made in China. (What, you're not familiar? Follow the "fakes" label at the end of this post.) As I've documented before on this blog, the fakes have generated successively more copies, which have become increasingly grotesque. Here's the sequence from a real Gourland typewriter to a copy of a copy of a copy:

But now I've seen it all. This is what I just spotted on Instagram (I will not divulge the name or username of the person who posted it, as I hope they will never realize what they have done to themselves).

The typewriter tattoo phenomenon, which is documented in my book, is kind of neat, in my view. It's like typing on your own body, and imprinting a powerful symbol of creativity and language on yourself. I'd get one, if my wife didn't hate tattoos in general.

But this person has—unwittingly, I assume—gotten a tattoo of a fake typewriter, complete with the weird little details that make no sense to anyone who has experience with real typewriters. The tattoo, a signifier of authenticity (indelible ink, pain, self-expression), has been undercut by the phoniness and superficiality of the notorious "Govrland."

O tempora, o mores.

A further degeneration in the realm of fake typewriters

Chinese-made fake typewriters have been turning up for a few years now. They're intended as decorative items, probably for places like restaurants or clubs where they can contribute to a phony "old-timey" feel and people won't give them a second look.

Now there's a new development, which I spotted on eBay today: a cast-resin miniature that is itself an imitation of a copy of a phony typewriter: a fake fake fake!



So what is the origin of this weird object?

As I pointed out nearly five years ago, the root (real) typewriter is a Gourland.
The fake version of it is a Govrland.
This became Governor's Land (via a country club in Virginia).
And now we have GOVERNGRS IAND.




What will be next?

A case study in mutation

From Gourland to Govrland to Governor's Land:

:

There is now a second generation of fake typewriters which
apparently copy the copies instead of the originals.

The process is like a game of "telephone," or like the evolution of coins in the ancient

world from Greek and Roman originals to bizarrely distorted barbarian copies — a sequence

that I've always found disturbing, as if a hallucination were taking over the

world and losing all contact with reality.

 

(Source)

Tributes and trickery

See Alan Brignull's "typecast" here.

What is a typecast?

Readers may recall this fascinating piece of correspondence that I recently received.

Its sender, Alan Brignull, assured me that he didn't mind being identified here. So thank you, Alan, for your package, and I hope my return package has reached you by now. Alan is a printer whose wonderful letterpress work you can see by searching Google Images for "Adanaland."

In addition to sending me an interesting '60s article on typewriter typefaces, including proportional ones, Alan contributed this thought-provoking reflection:

Alan explains:

What do typospherians think? Does this count as a typecast? What is a typecast anyway, and what is its purpose? I'll follow up with some thoughts of my own in a few days. (They can now be found here.)

Faux phonies

I've been seeing more and more fake typewriters for sale. These are made in China and definitely take some ingenuity and skilled labor to design and assemble (not as much as real manual typewriters, of course -- which are also made in China). I expect that some, if not all of these are based on photos -- it's not easy to get your hands on a Gourland, after all. They seem to be designed to provide some charm and atmosphere to a display in a store, and to be appreciated at a glance or as part of an overall effect -- not to be scrutinized close up, much less used.

Coincidentally, maschinengeschrieben just showed us a Louis Vuitton window display in Zurich featuring some beautiful custom-made faux typewriters.

What should we make of this trend? Are these objects pathetic travesties, or another positive sign that people are taking an interest in typewriters? Compare these fakes to the originals and see what you think.