A visit to Tom's typewriter shop.

"There's a couple of repairers in Melbourne" Territz said to me as we walked around the corner of Lygon street and down Elgin street. "There's a guy that lives a lot closer to me that I've had look at a typewriter. But Tom's different. Tom just seems to have that edge. His work just seems to be just that bit better than the other guy's". 

There's not a lot of repairers out there that still have an operating shop. And none that is as close to a cultural hub as Tom's is. 

less than 200 meters away from Tom's shop is La Mama Courthouse theatre. La Mama started out a little further around the corner at a different location, and was a theatrical workhouse where writers - many of them quite famous, could workshop their plays and other literary works. I'd worked on many performances in the Courthouse theatre myself, and I still have a love for the place. Add to that the nearby university of Melbourne, as well being in walking distance to the vibrant Lygon, Brunswick and Smith streets and you have a typewriter shop in the middle of where pretty much it is all happening in Melbourne.

And I know for a fact that a lot of the writers that circulate around there use typewriters. 

As we approached Tom's shop I was greeted by a familiar sight. A black Corona 4 in the earlier curved and peaked front shape, was pressed against the glass. Tucked in behind it was a very square Continental portable which was flanked by two giant printer/photocopiers that had several other typewriters piled up on them. Standing guard in front of all of this was a cowboy that restlessly kept his eye on the street in front of the shop. 

Teeritz slid the door open, and we were immediately greeted by the strong smell of spray paint and oil. The source of this smell was to be found directly inside of the door; a black Remington 10 that I would later learn Tom had been brought back to life from a very dismal state.

We called out, and soon Tom came out from somewhere at the back of the shop. His eyes lit up as he recognised Teeritz, and he gave me a welcoming handshake. It was a struggle to get around his shop, as it has years of built-up clutter from Tom's trade in repairing typewriters and other more modern office machines. I'm a fan of clutter myself - it always represents an opportunity of exploration, and Tom's held a whole world of promise.

While office copiers and printers dominated the floorspace in the shop, there were typewriters hidden almost everywhere you turned. An old Brother 760TR sat casually placed on top of a pile of other parts, and the familiar shape of IBM selectric machines jutted out of various locations. I kept looking around in the hope of finding a rare gem hiding amongst the clutter, completely un-aware that I had already seen one and foolishly overlooked it as being just another run-of-the-mill machine. 

Tom was very friendly to talk to. He'd been kept busy with Melbourne's repairs for decades, and now many young writers were discovering his service. He had a folder of blogs and articles that had been written about him recently, and he handed copies to both myself and Teeritz to have a browse through. He pulled out one written by Rob Messenger, and then told both of us about the time he met Rob while doing some typewriter repair work at the 'I am typewriter' festival that was held in Melbourne some time back. 

"Do you ever email back to these people"? I asked.

"Nope. I'm computer illiterate. I don't do email". 

It was in Yugoslavia and Germany that Tom had learned much of his trade and he seemed particularly fond of a lot of the German made machines. "Typewriters like this" Tom said as he waved his hand towards the Continental, "They were always the best and never gave people much grief. Olympias, Adlers, Continentals. They were all very good". I suggested that he might find one of my typewriters interesting, so I pulled out my Gossen Tippa for him to have a look at. It didn't seem to be a familiar model to him, but he nodded his head as he looked over it. With his bottom lip turned up in appreciation, he simply said 'That's a good one'. 

Tom was particularly proud of what he had achieved with a Remington 10 that a customer had brought in. "It was his fathers and had been sitting in the bottom of his shed for decades. It was full of mould and rust, and I wasn't even sure I could fix it. But now look at it"! 

"I wish I had a before shot" Tom continued. "The customer will be wrapped with this". 

He excitedly tapped at the Remington's keyboard, showing how well the machine worked. And worked well it did! I'd love to have the machine myself. 

Tom was telling Teeritz and myself about some of the other typewriters he has in storage, which he may sell down the track. So I asked him the obvious question: did he have a collection of his own? 

"Nah" he said before he explained, "I fix typewriters. They're just work to me". 

I didn't realise it at the time, but it wasn't going to be the last time I heard that sentiment that week. 

The shop is actually part of Tom's home. He lives upstairs and owns both the upstairs apartment and the shop itself. As such the shop is a very low-cost operation. Tom leaves the lights off in the shop most of the day, and he doesn't run credit card or electronic transaction facilities. As he often is just a set of stairs away, he can keep very relaxed hours. 

That said, this is one of the few repair shops I know of that still have a fully working shop-front, and Tom is a pleasure to talk to. He showed me some of the other machines he had strewn around the shop - a Royal QLD, a Triumph Adler electric, A cyrillic Hermes baby,  and..... that very interesting little surprise that I was talking about. But I'll write about that typewriter soon. Suffice to say, something came home with me on this Melbourne trip. You can see it just peeking out in one of the photos above.

I was glad I took the time out to visit Tom's shop, and to be honest I really did need Teeritz to show me where it was. It is the kind of place you'll miss if you blink - and is very modestly advertised. But if you need a repair in Melbourne, Tom's shop strikes me as a good first port of call. 

Elite Office Machines Co

Typewriter Dealers & Repairers - Carlton, VIC

188 Elgin St, Carlton VIC 3053

The Russian's кириллица secret.

I came across a Olympia Cyrillic typewriter on Gumtree.com.au a little while ago, and had a hell of a time getting the seller to send it to me. In the end, they just disappeared and ceased email contact. About 4 months later I saw them advertise the same machine again on the same site.

Again several emails transpired and again we got nowhere before they stopped talking.

Note: anyone looking to buy this machine on the sunshine coast, I think it's vapor-gear. Don't waste your time with it.

I've been trying to chase a handful of Soviet era artifacts for a while now. Originally I had been just seeking a Russian made telephone. But then I decided that if I were to add one to my phone collection in my cabinet, it would be nice to have some other Russian gear to go along side it. 

I wasn't too upset about not getting the Cyrillic machine, as it was a Olympia Traveller - which was too new a design and would have not really reflected the era. And besides, the Travellers have quite a reputation for being a rather shitty typewriting experience. 

But then a couple of weeks ago a Cyrillic Hermes 'Baby' with turned up on eBay AU.  I was excited, as it was a 50's era design with the 'wings' style ribbon covers, and looked largely in excellent condition. With one exception - there seemed to be something missing from the top of the typewriter. 

See, it's 'rare'. I know it is rare, because it said so on the internet so it must be true. 

It was going cheaply too... No one had placed a bid by the time I saw it, and no one bid against me. Before long, the machine was being shipped up from Tasmania. "Hey! I hope you're up on your Russian!" the seller wrote to me when he notified me that he'd posted the machine.

Now lets be clear... Russian is not the only language the uses the Cyrillic alphabet. It is just the most well known. 

By now I'm sure you've noticed what is missing from that typewriter. The Hermes logo, and the 'baby' name. 

And being who I am, all kinds of ideas started to race through my head as to why this may be. These were possibly fueled by my love of cold war spy dramas of the Le Carre type, I concocted all kinds of scenarios around this typewriter. Most of which were only heightened when the machine actually arrived.

And there it was... on my desk. 

Now, I'm not going to claim for a second that this machine actually had some kind of cold war role. And to be fair, considering Australia's rich and interesting immigration history, post second world war, this machine probably does have a much more interesting story than any dodgy spy drama could ever tell. 

But when you see this on the back....

 

... it isn't hard to start wondering about this machine. So, it was made in Switzerland and sold to the USA Market. At the time there were Hermes dealerships in AU that were directly importing themselves, so immediately I started wondering about what role this machine had in the USA before it came to Australia. 

What DID this typewriter do in the USA before coming to Australia? How did it come to end up in Tasmania? Why was there a screw missing in the back of the machine... was a bug removed? 

And then Ryan over at Magic Margin posted a blog about the Soviets spying though the typewriters inside the US Embassy.

I emailed the seller about the history of his machine, and he informed me that he hadn't had it all that long - having bought it at a car boot sale a little while ago. So there was no joy to be had here. It seemed that this machine's story was unlikely to be given up any time soon. 

The machine it self works brilliantly. Like all of these machines, the felt seems to hold a substantial amount of musty typewriter stench. It isn't over-powering like one of my other Hermes machines had been, and was just enough to give it that 'history' feel. 

But what about the logo? I kept scratching my head about the logo.. Why was it missing? What had been there originally? Was it something that had been specially made and had a unique logo? 

 

Hang on, I can almost... almost see something there. Is it Something in Russian?!!?

There were fragments of paint on the front that looked like part of the original logo. But I couldn't quite make out what it was. Also, there were two other fragments of paint that looked like it had been pushed around and left by some kind of chemical wash. It might have been a miss-guided attempt at cleaning the machine, but it also could have been an attempt to hide something.

So... how do we find out?

Well... You could get all kinda 'C.S.I.' and whip out your specially made Black-light torch. You know, the kind that every self respecting person has sitting about the home for the thousands of potential uses that a Black-light torch has.

Your standard, garden variety black-light torch.

So I grabbed out my handy-dandy Black-light torch, and flashed it onto the Typewriter. You know... Gangnam style. Why not Gangnam? CSI always rock it out to some old crappy pop tune, why not a new crappy one? 

It's a.... it's a....... oh....

As it turned out, it wasn't even a Hermes Baby. It was a freakin' Hermes Rocket. Hardly some unexpected cold war relic! My understanding is, that the Rocket name was a label that was applied to a series of Baby machines that were specifically made for the US market. This again confirmed that this machine had taken the long way round to Tasmania. 

But there was something more... if you look at the photo you can see three pink and glowing fragments of paint. While these were somewhat the same colour as the rest of the red paintwork on the Hermes, under the Black light they glowed with considerably more oomph.

Why did they glow? Well, the glow that you see under a Black-light is caused by phosphors reacting to UV light. It actually produces light when it is hit by the UV rays. Phosphors have been used more recently in modern products to give brighter tones and more defined colours.

It doesn't mean that the paint on this typewriter was younger, but it does indicate it was applied in different conditions in a different process. The fragments themselves were thicker than any of the text, including the bold 'Hermes' logo. So it is again a bit of a mystery as to where it came from, and what it originally may have depicted. I suspect that something had been stamped or painted over the top of Hermes Rocket logo, but unfortunately none of it had bonded enough to stay behind. But would have been this that was washed off when the bulk of the original logo was removed. 

Anyway... I'm very happy with this machine. After a little bit of servicing it is writing and running extremely smoothly. What more could I want! 

I know what more I could want.... A Russian telephone for my collection. Now.... any of my readers got any Soviet Telephones?

До свидания, пока мы в следующий раз встретиться. И благодарю вас за чтение.