In this issue Editor’s Notes .......................2 Pocket Typewriters ..............3 Journal of the A Bennington letter.............. 7 Early Typewriter Oliver salesman’s letter .......8 The Oliver Magazine ............9 Collectors’ Association Portable Potpourri.............. 10 From Our Members ..............11 Letters ..................................12 No. 82 -- June 2008 Editor’s ETCetera Journal of the Early Typewriter Notes Collectors’ Association machine, a turquoise plastic-bodied Grants 737 Deluxe made by Naka- June 2008 jima, also around 1970. Light, quiet, No. 82 and of decent quality. ± You won’t ind those three ma- Editor: chines in “New on the Shelf,” because Richard Polt they’re no longer with me. I enjoyed lison Scott of New Orleans pro- 4745 Winton Rd. Aposes a typewriter enthusiast get- inspecting, cleaning, and ixing them Cincinnati, OH 45232 together, November 6-9, 2008. The as needed. Then I had the pleasure 513-591-1226 weekend will include a party at her of giving them to three kids I know [email protected] typewriter gallery in Algiers Point, from my daughter’s dance school a quiet Victorian village just across who’d been wishing for typewriters. Secretary-Treasurer & Mailer: the Mississippi from downtown New You see? The typewriter hunt Herman Price Orleans; a lecture and open discus- doesn’t have to be about spending German translation: sion; a riverboat cruise; dinner at a a month’s salary on a rare antique and adding it to your private collec- Norbert Schwarz ine restaurant; and more. Proposed fee: $250. For more information, e- tion. These common and “worthless” typewriters brought just as much ©2008 ETCA. Published quarterly. mail Alison at [email protected] Calendar year subscription: $30, or call 504-398-0521. pleasure to me and to others. North America; $35 elsewhere. ± Checks payable to Herman J. Price, ± 195 Greenbag Rd., Morgantown, WV Speaking of value, for years the 26501, USA; or use paypal.com to How the mighty have fallen: from price of a standard typewriter was pay [email protected]. $125 in 1874 to $1.25 in 2008. That’s $100—comparable to a personal ISSN 1062-9645 what I paid for a new, Chinese Gen- computer today. But how long would staff.xu.edu/~polt/typewriters/etc.html eration 3000 manual portable on that typewriter last? It was made to eBay. The plastic is unimpressive endure decades with only minimal On Our Cover and the design isn’t the most bril- cleaning and lubrication and an occa- liant, but it is an honest-to-goodness sional trip to the shop. Compare that National 10 manual typewriter, surely one of the to the constant lux in the computer Thomas Fürtig collection last. An interesting detail: it includes world, where a machine is obsolete, the � (rupee) sign. For more on this perhaps inoperable, in ive years… This spectacular machine (serial number model, see Will Davis’s “Portables, ± 516) is the only one of its kind known, and ETCetera” column in our issue 74. The largest collection of Marchant - is one of the very few oice-sized typewrit ± calculators in the world will be on ers that were ofered in a completely nickeled Another recent bargain was a circa version. It was made by the Rex Typewriter display at The Historical Museum at 1970 Smith-Corona Super Sterling for St. Gertrude in Cottonwood, Idaho. Company in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. This $5 at a thrift store. I usually ignore particular specimen was sold in France with In attendance will be Robert Avery, objects from that era, but when I took son of Harold Avery, inventor of the a French keyboard layout (but English leg- a second and third look, I decided I Marchant. Contact Ernie Jorgenson, ends on some keys). We thank Tom Fürtig for admired the Space Age styling and 1740 Birch Ave., Lewiston, ID 83501, the photograph. its shade of blue. It’s also interesting 208-746-8325, [email protected]. to see how Smith-Corona continued ± For more discussion and pictures, see this page to use the original early-’30s mecha- on Will Davis’ web site: nism for some 40 years, with minor Ed Neuert submits a small correc- reinements along the way. tion to his article in our last issue: www.geocities.com/ I couldn’t stay away from the thrift the Noiseless no. 4 does not have a wbd641/National10.html store, where I picked up another $5 right-hand Figures key. / ETCetera No. 8 / June 008 Reduced for the Pocket: One-Handed Devices by Jos Legrand ington. His machine (bottom let) was iled in tem whereby stenographic, as well as longhand April 1899 as a Pocket-Recorder. In the pat- systems, may be equally-well recorded.” And ent there is no reference to Livermore, but that that is a lot more than the sixty-three of Liver- was not customary in those days. Besides, it is more’s system. a totally diferent system, although there is at As with a lot of these inventions on paper, least one striking similarity: “a pocket record- we hear nothing further of the Pocket Type- ing device in which are provided a series of keys Writer. McLean Long was later active in the which are adapted to be operated by the in- golf industry, but he also patented sprinkler heads and a keyholder. he recently recovered machine from Ben- gers of one hand of a person while held in the Tjamin Livermore (ETCetera #81) is very pocket.” Where Livermore’s inal Typograph inspiring and leads to contemplation about a used six keys to compose one letter, McLean lot of things, such as Livermore’s wish to make Long’s four keys produce dots and dashes. Read a machine reduced to minimal measures, be- the patent: “From the foregoing it will be not- cause he wanted to write in his pocket. “his ed that by bringing into combination with the curious little piece of Yankee mechanism is… vertical dash either the dot in four positions or suiciently small to be carried and operated in the dash in four positions relative to the verti- the pocket with ease,” the Phrenological Jour- cal dash a complete code is produced, whereby nal wrote. Maybe it sounds odd, writing within any conversation may be taken down and nu- the pocket, but the machine was meant as a real merals and other signs recorded, and I am able “Pocket Writing Machine,” or “Pocket Printing by this arrangement of keyboard not only to Machine,” as it was named by the inventor him- make letters as described, but also to make the Eugene McLean Long was one of Liver- self. Literally a machine for writing in the pock- letters of the Morse telegraph alphabet with a more’s followers; Peter Krumscheid was an- et. his is Livermore’s irst sentence in his circu- slight alteration in the position of the dots and other. One testimonial for Livermore referred lar: “I take this method to bring to your notice the dashes.” he invention of McLean Long to the blind as the class of persons for which the a new mode of writing … which enables one to worked with diferences in pressing the keys machine would be “the greatest blessing.” he write or note his thoughts in places and under (“lightly to make a dot and under a heavier Boston Journal was euphoric: “What an ines- circumstances where the present mode is in- pressure to make a dash”). But we have no sign timable blessing to the blind! In this way, they practicable”—such as riding in cars, walking in of the “complete code” for the dots and dashes, can write as legible and as fast as those who see. the park, in a crowd, or in the dark night in bed. so we do not know what kind of combinations he deaf and dumb will also probably come in (“In his bed, at the dead of night, a man may should have been used for a single character. for their share of the common boon.” A lot of record his waking thoughts,” like a preacher activities in that direction should have been “printing his sermons during his wakeful hours expected since, but only one attempt is known at night, without a light, or the inconvenience to me, Krumscheid’s speciication (above), of rising from his bed.”) he pocket was its ref- which was applied for in March 1916. In two uge. he Boston Daily Traveller wrote: “[Mr. regards his invention relates to Livermore’s Livermore] has invented a machine for print- machine—its compactness and its use: “One ing, which, without a igure and literally, may object of this invention is to provide a writing be called a pocket printing press; since it may be machine…which may be conveniently carried carried in one’s pocket, and operated there.” and operated in the pocket.” But in contrast Half a year later McLean Long came with to Livermore, no arguments are given for writ- ing “in the pocket,” nor an indication of how to an improved speciication. his time it con- operate seven keys with one hand. Krumscheid cerned a Pocket Type-Writer. Generally the ma- came from Roxbury, one of the oldest towns in chine is the same, but the keys are not rounded Massachusetts. His machine made use of the of anymore, like Livermore’s keys, but rect- Braille system, having six keys and a spacer key angular, and there is an additional thumb-key in the middle. he size and the height of Krum- (W in Fig. 1). And so the machine was capable scheid’s Typewriter are comparable to that of of “short-hand work, as well as convenient for Livermore’s Permutation Typograph.