Spotted this weekend - an early LEGO typewriter.
When the company released set number 234 in 1958 with 1x1 bricks printed with letters, probably one of the things to make with these letter-bricks would have been a typewriter. The keyboard only has 21 keys (may have had a few more) and has an alphabetic layout. This model is relatively simple, but definitely a Lego typewriter.
This build was spotted in a display case in a museum / permanent exhibition / playroom for Lego. (This museum's been almost doubled in size since only a few years ago. It has all the recent themes and sets, and also a lot of history starting with the wooden toys, with loads of special and rare items. Very impressive.)
Applying some legology (by our resident legologist); the faded yellow, warped bricks suggest original 1950's or early 60's parts -that spent serious time in sunlight.
The red 'platen' is made up from macaroni pieces - these do not have the stud notch cut-out to enable fitting on a baseplate so are the very early variant.
This early variant was made 1955-1956 - matching the 1958 letter-bricks. We've only examples of the 1956-onward macaroni with the stud notch:
Transparent macaroni pieces with stud notch form the corners of the keyboard frame, they needed to fit ona base-plate. These were first introduced, transparent, in set 307 / 1307 of 1958.
The faded yellow bricks of the keyboard-base did show that letter-bricks were moved around, the outline of earlier positions are visible.
This early, 1960-ish, typewriter was in a display with mostly company promotion/sales material made for illustrating booklets or display by the trade. It is made from pieces that match a ~1958 build date. The use of yellow (uncommon back then) and a lot of macaroni also suggests access to ample supply of pieces (e.g. a company 'model room'). There always remains the possibility, however, that it was made later (or even very recently) from period parts, but likely this is a company created promotional piece.
The museum -of course- also has the more recently issued LEGO typewriter on display:
Quite the contrast with the ~1960 version - this recent official typewriter is much more detailed - as is Lego as a whole, compared to the 1960 system.
Even though needing more imagination to 'see it', it definitely is a typewriter. An early one - perhaps this is even the very first official Lego typewriter! :-)
