Does anybody know anything about Antique Typewriters?

September 23, 2019 1:51 PM

While helping a friend move his office, we came across a shelf full of antique typewriters.

We checked around a bit, but were dissuaded by our inability to find methods to quantify the rarity or even value to these old machines. They appear to be in good to great shape, and we spent an afternoon cleaning them up and took some pictures.

I was wondering if the hive mind had any information about these machines. I'm somewhat of an amateur historian, but I'm way out of my comfort zone on these. Any information would be fantastic.

The ownership of these are not in question. He purchased the office with everything included in the original deal, and we have since checked with the original officeholder and he gave his okay to it.

posted by Sphinx to Grab Bag (7 answers total)

It’s not clear what kind of information you’re after but when I bought my antique Underwood, I shifted through google and eBay to match it with others listed there to find out its age. Underwoods and Royals are very common, you should be able to do it fairly easily. They’re not worth much but they’re pretty cool anyway. Nice find!
posted by Jubey at 2:06 PM on September 23, 2019

They're beautiful, and easy to google. And once you've figured out what models they are, you'll discover that some delightful people are making ribbons for them still, so you'll be able to use these beauties.
posted by BlahLaLa at 2:17 PM on September 23, 2019

Best answer: The Classic Typewriter Page to the rescue!
posted by niicholas at 3:44 PM on September 23, 2019

Best answer: If you're stumped on a particular model after searching on maker names or checking resources like niicholas' suggestion, you might also try emailing vintage typewriter shops; in my neck of Portland there's Ace Typewriter & Equipment who have always had good answers to my (very occasional) typewriter questions.
posted by cortex at 3:47 PM on September 23, 2019

Nice haul!
posted by rustipi at 4:49 PM on September 23, 2019 [1 favorite]

Best answer: That's an impressive collection! The Typewriter Database website is the best single on-line resource for identifying and dating old typewriters.
posted by misteraitch at 12:10 AM on September 24, 2019

Response by poster: Thank you for all the great responses!

These should help a bunch while we find out what to do with them.
posted by Sphinx at 11:14 PM on September 24, 2019