What It Is Like Owning a Typewriter

Last summer I decided that I wanted a typewriter. It feels like the idea of wanting a typewriter just popped into my head. I don't know what made me want to get a typewriter but I just wanted one and I was determined to get one that summer. 

Typewriters always seemed fascinating to me. Before I got a typewriter I didn’t know how they worked and I wanted to find out how. Tom Hanks was also sort of a reason why I wanted to get typewriters because he collects typewriters. Tom Hanks was also one of my favorite actors when I started wanting to get a typewriter. 

At first I wasn’t having good luck finding typewriters because most of the typewriters I saw were a little too expensive for me and the cheaper ones were in bad condition. Then after a few weeks I went garage sale shopping and I found this five dollar 1984 electric Brother Correct-O-Riter typewriter. I decided to buy it because it was in good condition but the reason it was only five dollars was because it didn’t come with a cord to plug into the typewriter. That was a huge problem because it had such a unique plug that we couldn’t find anywhere. It took me around three months to find another typewriter that came with a cord and the typewriter itself didn’t even work. 

Then I had two typewriters, one that didn't work and one that did work .The one that did work had a bad ribbon. However the one that didn’t work was a Correct-O-ball typewriter. It probably broke in shipping because when I plugged it in it started making this annoyingly loud sound when it was supposed to be silent. The Correct-O-Riter didn’t have a good ribbon. If you don’t know what the ribbon is, it’s the way typewriters get ink. By pressing a key down the letter will go up, hitting the ribbon and printing the letter onto the paper. Having a bad ribbon wasn’t the best because I had to hit the key a bunch of times just to make the letter visible. That made it super hard to type long form notes. 

Around the end of the summer I went to the history center garage sale. They sell multiple typewriters and I was hoping to find a cheap one that’s in good condition. Luckily I found a 1950 Smith-Corona 5-series manual typewriter. It had a few broken parts which wasn’t the best and I had to push the right platen knob to make the platen roller go left so that it could move. The ink was great and for the price that I got it for it was in good condition. 

I also got erasable typewriter paper at the history center garage sale. Erasable typewriter paper works because it has a coat on the paper that is practically invisible. So when you make a mistake you can erase that coat with the friction of your eraser and it erases and you can fix your mistake. The erasable typewriter came in handy because just like typing on a computer I make mistakes while typing. I usually just write letters but I would like to do other things with my typewriter but I just don’t know what to do. I’ll probably stick to writing letters on it. 

I’m planning on collecting more typewriters that are in great condition. Once I find the best typewriter I can in my price range I’ll probably stop collecting them. But for now I’m just going to keep looking for more typewriters. I'm mainly looking for Royal Typewriters because I heard Royal makes great typewriters.