Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Safari sightings

In the few local thrift shops, there hardly ever are typewriters. Maybe they're gone quickly, or just not brought in that often. This time round however there actually were typewriters. Three of them even.

In oder of encountering them; first a dilapidated Remington standard. The tabulator keys are neatly labeled for 'name', 'street', 'subject' etc., in English. The keytops all have small handwritten labels stuck on with Dutch text, so 'hoofdletters' instead of 'shift'. It's seen better days. (Didn't look to see the asking price...)


The second machine was this exposed Olivetti Lexikon 80. These tend to turn up mostly with wide carriages somehow, rather a sizeable beast. The asking price of 59 euros for an incomplete and common machine seems a bit optimistic perhaps.


The last machine was this little beige Olivetti Lettera DL portable. It probably was 'played on' a bit, but the typebars unjammed fine. With an asking price of 20 euro, this is likely good value when wanting a working machine to type on. Looked a decent, little-used and clean typewriter.


No prizes for guessing what was bought; none of the above... (At least, not today, not by me...)

May check again there for perhaps a neat pre-war machine. The online platform's become a bit costly here. Bidding for clean, older machines quickly goes to even 3 figures.  Perhaps typewriters are now truly in-fashion, perhaps also it's because a few dealers (Etsy) are buying machines for their store. So perhaps the local thrift will be a source for a neat machine - at least a source to see and discover some :-)

3 comments:

  1. The Remington 12 standard is a very good typewriter.
    When its in good shape.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I had a Lettera DL briefly and found its bodywork to be very flimsy and they're not a patch on a proper Lettera 32, which is why I got rid of it. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  3. :-)

    Must admit the DL looked very seventies' plastic and did not tempt in the least. Did look very clean and functional though...

    ReplyDelete