Typewriters in Spain Editor’S Etcetera Journal of the Early Typewriter Notes Collectors’ Association I Gave It a Try and Came up with the Results You See Here
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In this issue Editor’s Notes .......................2 Typing in Spain ...................3 Journal of the Victoria ..................................4 Around the World .................5 Early Typewriter Majuguin ...............................7 Collectors’ Association Hispano Olivetti ...................8 Regia & Andina .................10 Red Hot Writers ..................13 Ephemera: Bar-Lock ...........14 No. 86 -- June 2009 Typewriters in Spain Editor’s ETCetera Journal of the Early Typewriter Notes Collectors’ Association I gave it a try and came up with the results you see here. Testimo- June 2009 nial really is an elegant and strik- No. 86 ing typeface, which I’ve never seen on any other machine. Thanks to Jack’s devotion, it can now live on Editor: into the 21st century. Would you Richard Polt y article on creating type- like to have it on your computer? 4745 Winton Rd. Mwriter fonts (ETCetera no. Send an e-mail to [email protected] Cincinnati, OH 45232 74) was cause for a letter I got and I will e-mail you the TrueType 513-591-1226 not long ago from collector and font. [email protected] newspaper man Jack Knarr, who ± sent me several pages of typing Why do rarities come in pairs? Secretary-Treasurer & Mailer: samples and proved himself to be Two very scarce Monarch 101 type- Herman Price a true lover of typography: writers sold on eBay in April, for German translation: “Here is the typeface (Testimo- $562 (#A10010, with wrinkle paint) Norbert Schwarz nial) that once graced a tank of an and $795 (#A10080, with glossy old IBM I found atop a trash can paint). ©2009 ETCA. Published quarterly. one day on a country road in Cen- If you don’t know what a Mon- Calendar year subscription: $30, tral Jersey -- an odd, large type- North America; $35 elsewhere. arch 101 is, you need to read my Checks payable to Herman J. Price, face that I used in personal corre- article “The Quieter Noiseless 195 Greenbag Rd., Morgantown, WV spondence for about 10 years, until Portables” in ETCetera no. 66. 26501, USA; or use paypal.com to the IBM slid gently off my bed pay [email protected]. And how do you get back issues ISSN 1062-9645 one cleaning day, and suffered a of ETCetera? Issues 1-49 can be tinyurl.com/etctype broken part deep inside that Mike downloaded free from our web Brown indicated would be next to site (tinyurl.com/etctype). Issues On Our Cover impossible to fix. So I found anoth- 50-72 can be ordered from Rich er fresh IBM Executive with the in- Cincotta and Chuck Dilts (type- Victoria no. #0191 cremental spacing, and had anoth- [email protected], 508-229-2064). Pere Padrosa collection, er IBM mechanic strip the type out Finally, issues from #73 on are Museu de la Tècnica de l’Empordà, of both machines, and install the available for $25 (N. America) or Testimonial in the fresh one. Sadly, Figueres, Catalonia, Spain $30 (elsewhere) per year from however, when I saw the printed Herman Price (address at left). I (www.mte.cat) work on the page, I was heartsick. believe that if you haven’t read the Nickeled machine, found in France; Not only were the bottoms of the back issues yet, you will find them replated in 1999 by André Boisard, letters hitting on a crooked line, a most enjoyable and educational who added the French “Tabulation” but the guy had gotten a few spac- resource. ers between letters mixed up. So, key to help identify this machine in ± the machine has sat for 10 years, Collectors’ meetings are now the future as a restored specimen. mourned but not forgotten. I fired being organized in various parts This spectacular machine welcomes it up last week and worked it out a of the U.S., and hosts can get free you to our irst issue focusing on bit, and though I banged out a note subscriptions to Typex and ETCe- Spanish-made typewriters. More or two, I’m still vastly disappointed. tera. Contact Richard Polt, Mike articles on the topic will appear I really ought to get over this and Brown ([email protected], 215-934- later this year. Our article about the (at age 66) move on, for God’s sake. 7998), or Travis Hamric (travis@ Victoria begins on page 3. So this is one last attempt.” tttypewriters.com, 304-364-5685). / ETCetera No. 86 / June 009 TypingT Gets Started in Spain — by Jos Legrand ypewriters and Spain seem to be satisied with American typewriters, Tan illogical combination. Indus- which is not what we said or wished trialization in Europe was limited to to say; what we said and now repeat England in the 19th century and Ger- and deplore is, that we in Spain are many in the early 1900s. England took still behind in the matter of type- up the new mode of communicating writers, because up to the present we that had commenced in the U.S., but have not made any attempt to manu- never realized a great typewriter indus- that there is room for British manufacturers facture one of our own, while other try of its own. he answer to the enormous to push business there,” as could be read in nations, even as far of as Japan, have taken innovations in the States came from Ger- Pitman’s Phonetic Journal in 1903. So it is the task in hand. Far from being dissatisied many in the beginnings of the 20th century. not surprising that M. Bartholomew, man- with American machines, there are many In Greece, France, Italy and Spain they were aging director of the Yost Typewriter Co., which we think excellent. What we want is still writing with a pen then, and counting on his tour through Europe, visited Spain to put ourselves on the high level of America with their ingers. — But is that a correct in the summer of that year. he Yost Cor- and England, and other advanced nations.” perception of reality? poration had a sales outlet in Madrid short- Nicely spoken, but they didn’t—due to lack Demand for typewriters was very low in ly before 1900, being the irst of the agen- of high quality industry, and due to “indif- Spain around 1900. At least two thirds of cies that settled in Spain. Yost had engaged ferent workmen.” the population was illiterate. But on Febru- Because of the high prices for typewrit- a “lady manageress for the greater portion ary 19th of that year, the Spanish Govern- of Spain,” Maria Espinosa. here is a large ers, a rent-to-own system was used. Over ment “authorized by Royal Decree the us- interview with Bartholomew in Pitman’s, 60% of the business was done by that sys- age of typewriting machines in all Govern- June 1903. “Spain is going ahead very fast,” tem, which is very high in comparison with ment oice work,” following a request by a he noticed. “Of course, one very great disad- England, for instance, where 5% used that certain Antonio Comyn, an attorney, that vantage with regard to the typewriter busi- form of buying. he machines in favor were typescripts be treated as equivalent to hand- ness is the heavy protective duties, the con- Yost, Remington, Underwood, Bar-Lock, written or hand-copied documents (Gaceta sequence being that a standard typewriter Remington-Sholes and Williams. Most of de Madrid, Feb. 19, 1900). has to be sold there at from 900 to 1,000 them were sold in Barcelona and Madrid, Spain followed the international devel- pesetas.” here were no warm feelings be- Barcelona being ahead. here the chief opments very slowly. Compare it with the tween the two countries since the Span- typewriter business took place, with 25 dif- Netherlands, where typed governmental ish-American War of 1898, and although ferent systems represented, as compared to correspondence already could be found in tarifs were not unusual in the European 11 in Madrid. Barcelona also took the ini- the mid-1880s. Nevertheless, the interven- countries, those in Spain were the highest. tiative for a typewriter exhibition in 1903. tion spread like an inkblot. First there were hey were based upon the weight of the But trade as a whole was low in these the public institutions where the typewriter typewriter: 8 gold pesetas per kilo. he base early years. he Yost branch sold 156 of its was used, the governmental departments, and cover had to be included in the weight, machines between 1901 and 1903, out of then the legislature, and inally the other so a 10-kg typewriter had a customs weight a total of 700 to 800 typewriters that were public institutes and provincial adminis- of 16-18 kg. As a despairing tradesman imported to Spain yearly. he German trations. King Alfonso XIII bought a Yost complained, this tarif rate was matched by Schreibmaschinen-Zeitung found it a no- typewriter, and the aristocracy followed. no country in the world! he sales price was table number, but in 1906 the total export hat Yost, by the way, was made especially oten double what it was in other countries. of German typewriters and calculators to for him, with ivory keys and silver stems Due to new levy tarifs in 1906, an extra $45 Argentina was twice that to Spain. In 1908 nicely plated. He also took typing lessons had to be paid on each standard typewriter typewriters were imported at a value of one at the Yost establishment in Madrid. In that was exported to Spain—an increase of million pesetas, which could be about 1000 1914 the monarch even got a gold machine, about 50% compared to the selling price in machines; the double of that igure was brand unknown, of which “Nearly every the United States.