First, a Tidy

As I undertake a deep tidy of my studio space and reassess what's what, I notice that besides all the art supplies, fountain pens, and ink bottles, I have ... a lot of typewriters.

Studio Whiteboard: time for a typewriter tidy.
And that’s ‘Baco’ typewriter ribbon, not … bacon, in case you thought I collected that also

Of my almost thirty machines, several sit out on my desk for regular use. Many are displayed about the house. The rest stay in their case, protected from dust.

Cases, full and empty, are stashed in all sorts of hidey-holes.

As I ferreted out all the various typewriter cases to figure out who belonged with what, I looked at the amassed muddle, and had to ask: why am I collecting typewriters?!

The serious grey cabinet with the black shiny typewriters. An identical green cabinet lives in the yellow dining room, full of wildly colorful machines. That cabinet I call, ‘the candy store.’

Why I Collect Typewriters?

A baker’s dozen-plus-one reasons. Your mileage may vary. But of course, there are more.

Typewriter collecting makes me happy, pure and simple.
I have found the typewriter community to be kind, thoughtful, creative, resourceful, and generous. Who doesn’t need a dose of that in their lives?
I love learning the history of different models, industrial design, and the minutia of all the concomitant details. I’ve mostly learned this along the path of looking at and assessing machines, whether I should buy them or not. It’s a satisfying path of curiosity; there’s always more to learn.
Hunting for typewriters has taken me on journeys I never expected to take.
The thrill of accidentally coming across a special model is not only wonderful but sort of addictive.
No typewriters worth mentioning are made anymore. Some of my most special machines have been rescued from the trash. They deserve saving, even if I don't subsequently keep them.
In the process of collecting, I have found creative joy in passing on the information I learn to you.
Also the unalloyed pleasure of giving away machines to others.
A student on the autism spectrum, in one of my high school writing classes, was helped to focus by using a typewriter. Then he restored his grandmother's high school machine—a Remette—with the help of Tom Furrier over the phone, and took off with writing in a way that brought tears to the eyes of his mother. Hauling my machines into class, one for each student, was the start of that journey for him. As a teacher and a collector, it doesn't get more rewarding than that.
It's cheaper than getting into antique cars.
Or keeping horses. (Visiting my sister-in-law's horse barn during a family reunion, each of my kids sidled up to my husband and whispered, "At least mama doesn’t collect horses." In his relief at this revelation, my husband urged me, on the way home, to “go ahead and buy another typewriter ..." He is not opposed to my collecting habit but this was unusual encouragement.)
Shopping therapy in a pandemic. If I’m honest.
‘Shopping’ for a typewriter from my collection is as fun as finding a new one … the surprise of remembering a lovely typeface, or why I liked a typewriter so much that I bought it.
And the most important reason: I love to use them. I love to write letters to my future self, letters to others, make plans, and write first drafts of essays, all on a typewriter.

Oh, but, come on, Michelle, why so many?

Mine is a tiny collection compared to the heavyweights of the typewriter world.

But, yes, thirty or so. Something you don’t accidentally do.

Ok, here’s the inside scoop. I am good at finding things. My ultimate talent is gleaning. Ferreting out deals and opportunities—‘learning moments’ for my kids, translated into a quarter century of homeschooling—really just one big glean of resources.

For the same reason, I was a seller of used books for a decade or so. As I built our home library, I came across extras and just couldn't help passing them on, enthusiastically, to an ever-growing list of customers.

Eventually, I was sending out one email a month to around 300 buyers, listing that month’s books. A frenzy of orders would come back within the hour. We spent the month shipping. And buying more. I knew every library sale in eastern Massachusetts and also the specific needs of my most frequent customers. Everyone ended up happy. Except for those who didn’t email quickly enough.

I chose to stop bookselling when my oldest daughter was diagnosed with anorexia, with weekly visits to Children's Hospital, Boston for a year. I prioritized her, sold the business, and missed it greatly. And yes, eventually, she recovered.

Collecting typewriters, although not for me a commercial enterprise, has tapped into that same stream of pleasurable searching, finding, passing on, and filling my own tank along the way.

Now, I can’t help finding typewriters.

(And am still collecting books …)

The Influencers: Electra Havemeyer Webb & Isabella Stewart Gardner

There are two women I admire who were collectors of seemingly everything.

Electra Havemeyer Webb created the Shelburne Museum in 1947—45 acres of Vermont hillside filled with Americana—39 buildings!

Shaker tools and hat boxes, weather vanes, and printing presses—a one-room schoolhouse, a church, a print shop, and a train station, complete with Presidential train. Blacksmith shop, village dentist office—thousands of tools—a covered bridge, a sawmill. Yes, and a lighthouse, a 220-foot steamship, and Mrs. Webb’s 5th Avenue apartment building, with a Monet—first in the country—in one of the rooms. Nearly all the buildings relocated to the museum grounds from around New England and New York.

A unique ‘collection of collections.’

I’ve been visiting this museum for 35 years and on my shelves is a dog-eared copy of her biography, To Collect in Earnest: the Life & Work of Electra Havemeyer Webb. Certainly a profound influence on my desire to collect.

And then there is Isabella Stewart Gardner, who single-handedly created the Gardner Museum at the turn of the 19th century. This three-floor, Venetian-style palace in Boston’s Fenway includes the largest collection of Renaissance chairs in North America, and yet you barely notice them amid the eclectic glory of art, framed fabric, gothic building parts, ancient Roman and Chinese artifacts, etc.

I wonder, as I wander the rooms teeming with Isabella Stewart Gardner’s immense collecting sensibilities, what it was like for her on a daily basis, her personal buyers scouring Europe, the reams of correspondence. Also, the thrill of beating out The Louvre and The National Gallery, London, for Vermeer’s The Concert, each stolid museum thinking the other had bagged the prize. This takes sniping to a whole other level.

The Gardner Museum feels like my second home and, surprisingly, is where I was inspired to get my first typewriter.

However, neither woman collected typewriters, which were then so prosaic and workaday that even Electra Havemeyer did not see them as works of art, though she had a buildingful of Shaker hand tools.

“Collecting typewriters ... has tapped into that stream of pleasurable searching, finding, passing on, and filling my own tank along the way.”

Typewriters for me are an accessible means of collecting on a humble scale, indulging in that same fascination with the past.

For me, they are also tools to still use, in the service of image and story. To step away from the digital and connect with the swathe of makers down the ages who used their hands.

“You must have a large house,” commented Pam Loring—founder of the Salty Quill Writing Retreat—which I attended this fall. We were talking typewriter smack and she wondered how many I had.

“No, not really. But my house has lots of piles.”

So, back to tidying. I am the collector and the curatorial staff, both.

My Current Typewriter Collection

So what’s in my modest collection?

I’ve added a Typewriter tab in the navigation bar above or hit the button below. There you’ll find the complete list on its own page. It was helpful to write because now I know how many I actually have …

You can scroll through by model. Tap the ‘+’ for any section and it will expand.

Typewriter Diaries

I’m in the process of writing a post about each machine in a series called Typewriter Diaries. There you’ll also find info about each typewriter’s manual, and ribbon, where to find the serial number, and who among the panoply of writers is known to have used that make of typewriter.

My Typewriter Collection: an Up-to-date list!

What’s Important to Me

Since I expect to use these machines—sharing them at typewriter poetry events, with writing students, or employing them myself in my daily writing practice—it’s important to me that my typewriters work. I don’t want piles of unusable typewriters.

Other than a Folding Corona 3, I don’t collect early machines, which many collectors prize for their historic interest in the development of the ideas behind the typewriter.

I am aiming for workhorse machines. All but the most recent arrivals have been restored and many work perfectly. It helps to have access to a wonderful typewriter repair shop.

It’s also important to me to be generous. The most fun part of collecting is not hoarding but having an open hand, something I’ve learned from the generosity of the wonderful typewriter-collecting community.

A Giveaway

So in 2023, I’ll be giving away a typewriter to one subscriber of the monthly Paperblogging email newsletter.

There’s a form to subscribe in the footer of this page, and also in the sidebar. You’ll stay in the loop about all the posts here and be able to enter the giveaway.

How Not to Buy a Typewriter?

At the moment, I’m still on the side of joy with this collecting thing, but I know it can tip over into a problem.

I’m surprised by the number of hits the post So, You Want to Buy a Typewriter?! receives daily. But I have toyed with writing one on How NOT to Buy a Typewriter for anyone who needs to ‘just stop already.’ What do you think?

Are you a Collector?

Do you collect typewriters? Are you able to stop??

Or perhaps you are a fountain pen collector. Not a topic I tend to write about but fountain pens are a tool I use daily. What drives you to buy just one more pen?

I understand the allure very well.