An Imperial telegrapher's typewriter

Thanks to Leicester Museum and Galleries for permission to publish these photos of an extraordinary Imperial portable, made in Leicester. This is a Model T, serial 2N 634 (1940), with a three-row telegrapher's keyboard. You can click on any photo to see a high-resolution image.

In the back, there is room for a roll of paper.

The keyboard includes a FIGS shift on the left and a LTRS key to return the carriage to the unshifted position. 

The CAR RET key is mysterious, as one would presumably use the usual lever to return the carriage. The lever with the arrow is for setting tab stops, as explained on page 9 of the user's manual for the Model T. 

As you can see, each type slug includes a sans-serif capital letter on the bottom and a figure on the top. 

I do wonder why telegraphers would prefer a three-bank typewriter that required you to shift for figures over a four-bank typewriter. Many standard-sized telegrapher's "mills" were four-bank machines, after all. Perhaps the three-bank design saved some weight.

For more examples of telegrapher's typewriters, click here.

When analog is better than digital

Changing of the typewriter guard in Missouri

Jones Typewriter Co. is—or rather, was—a St. Louis institution, full of the glorious chaos that I know from my own workshop. At least, so I understand; sadly, I never got the opportunity to visit the shop myself. Now owners Charlie May and Vern Trampe have closed the shop, after 59 years in business (see more great information and photos in a St. Louis Post-Dispatch story).

However, a new typewriter business is arising to fill the demand: Clickety Clack! Owned by husband and wife Shane and Amanda Byrne, who plan to open their own brick-and-mortar location in Rolla, Missouri, CC promises to keep MO clicking for years to come. Shane has been apprenticing at Jones, and the Byrnes have bought most of the shop's inventory.

Photo by Wesley B.

To judge from a story in Phelps County Focus (only the opening three paragraphs are available online), the Byrnes have a tidy aesthetic.

They sponsored a type-in in Rolla last weekend. Insurgent correspondent Wesley B. offers us these glimpses.

Good luck, Clickety Clack! Typewriters are still a thing, nearly a quarter of the way into the 21st century—and you're going to help prove it.