Why I'm excited about Richard Polt's book.

The cover - as proposed on Richard's blog. 

Is it a book about typewriters? Or just writing.

Yeah, I admit it. I'm a typewriter collector. I intended to stop at 3, but then I found myself rescuing a glass key Royal portable from key choppers and it all went up-hill from there. The more blogs I read, the more I talked and met with enthusiasts, the more I found myself looking at online selling sites with eagerness.

And I collect for one person:- Myself. I both use my machines and appreciate them. So it is very important that they are highly functional and beautiful at the same time. These are the two key elements in my collecting criteria.

With that in mind I think it is time that I explain something that I said in the comments section of my blog a few months back.

 "It probably doesn't surprise you that I'm not a subscriber of Etcetera". 

Richard Polt - over at the Writing Ball blog edited the ETCetera early typewriter collectors publication for quite a while. I also understand that the publication has remained something that has been quite dear to his heart. The magazine is well written, well presented, and a great go-to for people who suddenly find themselves interested in Typewriter history.

And Richard certainly knows his stuff when it comes to the history of these machines. He is a serious collector with a thirst for knowledge of the history of them.

So as a self-proclaimed collector, why aren't I a subscriber?

You know, I do love reading up on typewriter history. There's a lot of great and interesting stories of the yesteryear kind and the tales can be genuinely involving. But that history it isn't why I use or collect typewriters. I haven't bought Michael Adler's book for the same reason, along with a handful of other books about typewriter history. While they are all well written and interesting, I feel that too often they focus on this history being about bearded white guys inventing sh*t. Stuff which seems of largely no consequence about what I like about writing with and collecting typewriters.

There were roughly as many Olivetti Valentine typewriters made as Blickensderfer 8s. Which one is considered more collectable? *

In a phone call about a year ago, John Lavery made an interesting comment to me while we were talking about some of the other collectors attending Herman Price's get-together  'We'll never be in the same league as those guys' he said 'and I'm pretty happy with that'. I initially found this puzzling, as I can look around John's workshop and see some incredible pieces - a Glass sided Triumph, a Densmore, a couple of Blicks and Hammonds, a Remington 2 and one of the 15 known Visigraphs. If anyone has a right to claim his position in that league, I'd say it was him. 

'Nah, I think I just like to repair them'. John said to qualify his statement. And with that I realised that John and I had far more in common than I did with many of the well-known collectors out there. It wasn't the chase of the rare or the weird that drove him or myself. It was something more... personal: it was what I did with the machines and what I visually loved about them. Just like John, I love fixing them - it is like solving a giant mechanical puzzle, much in the same way that I love to tinker with my car or motorbike. And like those two other big machines in my life, I also love using them.

My grandfather, the Remington typewriter mechanic lost the top digits of two fingers fidgeting with a chain on a motorbike (a Triumph, just for reference) when he was young. It certainly didn't stop him fixing typewriters long into a late retirement. Oddly this piece of history means more to me than Hess and Myers efforts to build the Royal typewriter factory. 

Back to the book.... 

I saw the plan for Richard's book last year, and I was intrigued to see that no-where on the plan was a deep exploration of the history of the typewriter. Bearded white-guys it seems, isn't on the menu - except for hipsters and... well, J.P. Huard and Mark Petersen, who currently use typewriters and are proudly bearded. My kinda guys! 

These are people writing, repairing and loving typewriters in many different ways. They are a community, not a history. We tend to look at typewriters as historical pieces. But they are alive and kicking - and on my damn desk! This, it appears, is what Richard's book is about. 

Richard explores a lot of the typosphere, and is very passionate about it. He's a very smart chap - he's not 'Professor Richard Polt' because he likes shoving that title in front of his name. So his book is likely to be a very well thought out exploration of the community. And this is something that genuinely interests me. 

I still think there's a lot of history out there that isn't really covered or taken seriously, such as the women of the typing pools, the mechanics and their stories, the sales men and women and of course - the writers. It is those histories that I am personally far more interested in than the 'bearded white men inventing sh*t' history. Those neglected stories are that has flowed on to make the enthusiast community what it is today. 

Richard's book may not be broadly culturally ground-breaking stuff, but it is a big step in a different direction on a subject that has a lot more culture to it than we currently recognise. I see it as piece of literature that is far more accessible to the casual enthusiast that makes up the larger community, than yet another publication for the devoted niche collector with big money tied up in machines that are never used. 

So, hurry up and publish already! 

Sydney Typosphere, Where the bloody hell are ya? (and your typewriters)

Steve and I woke up early again as we were eager to get into Sydney and through the traffic before it became difficult to drive on it's consistently grid-locked roads. It was a cold morning in Scone, and my car was frosted from cold condensation that had dropped overnight as it hit the nearly 30 degree mark. 

I looked out across the road as a coal train snaked its way past the town about 500 meters from the hotel. I felt this seemed particularly odd as it was an Easter Sunday. But I guess the mining industry stops for no one, not even the religious. I'd see several more such trains travelling beside the road before the day was out. 

Coal shipping in Scone. 

We jumped back into Ruby the Exxy, and immediately there was something wrong. The 'battery' light - which is actually the alternator warning light, was on and was staying on. I found a servo to get some petrol, and started to try and assess what was wrong once the engine was warm. 

With a couple of blasts of WD40 and a little bit of testing I determined that the alternator was able to produce a healthy charge,  so Steve and I thought we'd just try our luck and see how far we went. I had roadside assistance coverage, so if we did get stuck we'd be able to call for help. As long as we had phone range. 

After about 20 minutes there was a loud squeal and a thump, and the alternator light turned off. From that point onwards Ruby drove just as well as she always had. WD40 may have saved the day. 

Maybe. 

We grabbed breakfast on the road and just kept on driving. It wasn't long before we hit a brand new dual carriageway that turned the highway to Sydney into a Freeway, and we were soon barreling across the landscape at an uninhibited 110km/h. This was a bit of a shame really, as this new road bypassed many of the most beautiful towns to be found in the Hunter Valley. Instead we ended up having an effortless drive into Australia's largest metropolis - the crazy emerald city of OZ. Sydney. 

Now, I'll liberally steal from a somewhat failed Australian Tourism commercial when I ask this question: Sydney Typosphere, where the bloody-hell are ya? 

Sydney according to Apple Maps. 

Sydney's population is 4.6 million. Melbourne's population is 4.2 million. Brisbane's is 2.2 million (all as of 2011 census). My blog gets several readers from Melbourne, and my blog on Tom's Typewriter shop constantly gets hits by Victorians checking out information on his shop. So while there's really only one consistent blogger (see Teeritz Agenda) There's plenty of users down in Melbourne. 

Brisbane also is quite the same. I get a fair few general readers from Brisbane, and as we've seen there's quite a few lively bloggers there too.

Even Darwin and Perth have bloggers. People from Adelaide frequently email me, and they make up a fair amount of the buying and selling activity on ebay. And of course there's Canberra - which despite it's diminutive size, appears to be the typewriter writer capital of Australia. I have several consistent readers from Canberra, and not talking about just Rob and Jasper either.

But Sydney? I know of a guy that services machines there, and I know of at least one collector. But Sydney is incredibly quiet. Vanessa Berry, who is listed up in the Typosphere as a blogger is very Zine focused, and I've personally never seen her interact with other typewriter lovers. In short, typewriters and the typosphere in Sydney seem to be practically invisible. 

My blog also features nil interaction with people from Sydney. No readers, no commenters, nothing. Discussions in forums about hunting typewriters in Sydney often lead to nothing - as though the place is a veritable black hole. I often see machines being put up for sale there on ebay or gumtree, but there's more in outer New South Wales than there seems to be in that state's capital.

It puzzles me. With the level of creative activity going on in Sydney, and the size of its population you'd kinda expect to see more writers using their machines and collecting them there. But instead it is a dark patch of sky with only a few stars dimly twinkling. 

As it was Easter Sunday when we arrived in Sydney few shops were open. Steve and I didn't take the opportunity to hunt for typewriters, and instead headed for the Sydney harbor bridge - often known as 'the coat-hanger'. I popped open Ruby's roof and stuck the camera out as we crossed the bridge in the hope of getting some shots. They worked out okay, and both Steve and I had fun as we drove across this rather famous Australian landmark. 

As we drove into the CBD we found ourselves somewhat lost. After doing a few circles we came across a road that was completely shut off from traffic. On that road a large group of people stood waiting and watching the hotel across from them. They were being held back by a temporary steel barrier and a host of Australian Federal Police officers who were controlling the affair. 

These people were here to catch a glimpse of the visiting royals. A sign that Sydney does still hold onto some archaic and anachronistic traditions. 

Steve and I ducked around the miasma and headed out towards the western suburbs. Ruby showed no sign of failing, so we looked at the map and headed to Canberra and the Australian Typewriter Museum at Rob Messenger's place. 

Not a typewriter or typewriter lover was to be found in Sydney. If you're reading this and you live there, give me yell as I'd love to see that there's signs of life.

Steve Snow's blog, The Impatient Typewriter Mechanic' can be fond  HERE

The Oz Typewriter effect and lost opportunities.

In the last year or so many of the typosphere have noted that there's been a dramatic increase in the price of typewriters sites like eBay and Etsy. While the market for these machines is growing and typewriters are no longer seen as valueless antiques sitting in the garage, there's naturally been a steady increase in interest in information on typewriters online.

When Rob shut down his blog last week, we had an interesting opportunity to get a small insight as to what kind of impact our blogs are having on this this audience. I've been quietly watching for cues on what my own blog does with a new generation of collectors, but the shutdown of Rob's blog gave me an larger insight of its cultural impact.

This is graph from my blogger page that shows the activity on my blog over the past week.

This graph depicts the activity of views on my blog on a more or less hourly basis. As you can see the peak viewing point over an hour was 40 individual views, while there were Interesting activity lulls. 

My blog tends to receive a fair few hits from Rob's blog, but his blog isn't typically seen in my top 10 referrer sites. The typosphere page usually sits at number two, with the bulk of hits to my blog coming from people looking at other pages in my own blog. In essence, I am my own greatest referrer. 

But while Rob's blog was down, something did happen to the activity on my blog. 

As you can see on the graph above, while Rob's blog was down I had a period where activity in some hours dropped frequently to nothing, while it only had occasional peaks of interest. During this time there was a flurry of posting on Facebook and in the forums about Rob's blog being down. 

As the period progressed, I started to get steady increases of interest that would drop off suddenly. But when Rob's blog went back up, there was a flurry of activity. 

Which made what happened next also interesting. 

It took a day or so for the forum readers to catch up with the news that Rob's blog was back online. But about the time that the postings in Yahoo and Facebook stopped, there was a 6 hour period when my own blog seemed to grind to a halt before the two-spike 'evening shift' pattern started again. See how with every peak there's a smaller occurring peak before it? I suspect that's the time difference between the east and west coast of the USA coming online in the evening to do some reading after work. Unfortunately the scale on blogger's graphs is hard to interpret accurately. 

Notice those spikes missing anywhere? On the 31st I had absolutely no sign of that 'evening spike'.

Let's have a look across a broader period. 

In this graph you can see the I have a very clear 'Sunday reader' spike. This is why I tend to post most of my blogs in Australia on a Saturday night, or a Sunday day so that it corresponds with the reading periods of the audience both here in Australia and overseas. 

It is also the day that eBay makes their most money, as the sales items on that day tend to sell higher as there's a larger amount of people around to bid against items. 

While Rob's blog was closed my Sunday peak was less, and the general readership over the week decreased notably. 

This has also corresponded with another interesting trend that I've seen occurring. There is a notable impact of blog entries on interest in specific typewriter sales. For example: When I presented my completed chrome Royal on my blog some time ago, a second hand dealer in Singapore rushed to get a similar machine which they then proudly displayed online. When I displayed my Apothecary typewriter, the same seller also highlighted a machine they themselves had owned. 

Remember when I displayed my burgundy Groma Kolibri? Well, a unit that had sat unsold for a while on Etsy at quite a high price, sold the next day. I've seen very similar things happen with machines displayed on other people's blogs. 

What I'm seeing is a 'drive to buy' that is driven by 'typewriter culture' blogs like my own. What I write about on Sunday sells on Monday. 

Rob's blog has a massive impact on this 'typewriter culture' audience, and his blog can shift attitudes of larger groups. To all intents and purposes it is very similar to the impact that Oprah has across consumer culture. Rob's blog doesn't rule the typosphere, but it has enough gravity to change the trajectory of things that come close. 

This has happened as a result of one single thing: The sheer size of Rob's blog. While the quality writing and research has brought an audience, the frequency of Rob's writing has meant that Rob's blog gets far more reads than every other. The sheer volume of Rob's blog creates enough hits through google with both data searches and images that it is constantly near the top of almost every typewriter search topic. Were Rob to stop writing his blog tomorrow, this wouldn't stop. The amount of material that Rob has written attracts so much of the audience that it will only continue to grow. 

This phenomenon is observable in my own blog. This has happened to my own 'Hate letter to my Valentine' blog entry. Every year it gets more and more popular due to the ever increasing number of hits it receives. This year the gravity of the readership took my blog from an average 100-250 readers a day to 200-350 readers a day. As I get more and more reads, the pace of my own blog's readership has increased. 

So you may be wondering why I see this as a lost opportunity. Well, I think we have gotten the wrong idea of what a collector is as a group. Collecting is always going to be seen as a personal thing, but it also tends to be a community thing at the same time. In the past there has been a distinct view as to what is a typewriter of value, and what is not and this is something that is passed along by an involved community.

Were you to regard your collection by its value, other collectors would (and rightly so) scoff at you. No one collects anything necessarily as an investment. Indeed - limiting the size of your collection is likely to improve the value of sale later on if you wish to choose it, rather than stockpiling. 

But typewriters now have a social currency that it didn't have before. The curious are seeing the 'hipsterism' of typewriters, and are finding themselves curious about machines that they have never had to use in a work situation or professional capacity. Typewriters have become hobby tools and are associated with creativity, rather than the bureaucratic purpose that drove their development and sales for over a hundred years. 

it is at this point that we are seeing a dramatic change in the face of what is a 'typewriter collector'. Machines that were previously seen as worthless actually draw more interest. Sure, we'd all love to own those beautiful antique machines that we've seen in other people's collections, but at the same time machines that are immediately usable and yet beautiful have greater social value. People get more excited about finding a very common Hermes 3000 in 50's adornment than they do about seeing a Oliver 2. 

Other factors other than age and rarity have become key in what is driving the cost in typewriters. Colour, design, associated author and usability have a greater impact. A Hermes baby in 50's 'winged' configuration often has a greater value than a Corona 3. Only a minority of people collecting older machines will typically ramp the price up against each other. By large the people that have only hand full of 30's to 70's machines that make up the bulk of the community fight over more modern machines that these others reject - pushing their prices up dramatically. 

Typewriters have now become industrial art. People may just buy one or two, but it is the beauty of them they are looking for. To this end a glossy and shiny Underwood 5 has a greater value than, say a creepy looking Williams. Effectively the face this kind of collector is an art collector. And these are the collectors that are searching our blogs to look at the history of typewriters.

The typosphere blogroll is an audience engagement portal. While we often write blogs at other bloggers, the reality is that the'typosphere' readership are largely people that we don't know. People read up and look for information on the machines that they have on hand before moving on and looking at the history in general. There is an excitement about the history potential of even the most basic machines as they seek the context they exist in. Dismissing a machine as 'common' neglects to value some of the artistry and history that is potentially in every machine. 

And linking to pages of people with similar interests actually is really important to this community engagement. People will snake through other people's blogs for hours when they first feel those initial moments of passion. When they get a spark of something interesting, you have a potential for further audience engagement for the writers and creatives amongst us. 

It is to this end that I feel in some of the associated publications that are around have rather missed the boat. Magazines and books seem to have neglected this audience. People start to find their interest in typewriters on the internet now days. When people read up on something on my blog or Rob's blog, that isn't the end of it. They look for more. Magazines and books aimed at the attitudes of older collectors means that people have actually missed the bigger audience. 

It also means that we have missed other opportunities. For example, what appears on someone like Rob's blog one day, will drive a curiosity to find out more elsewhere the next day. I'll let you draw your own conclusion to why that has been a lost opportunity. 

PS. Again, don't be shy if you feel that I have no included your blog in my list down the side. Until recently Cheryl's Strike-thru blog provided about 12 percent of my hits, and often exceeded what the typosphere page brought to me. If your page isn't there it is probably out of neglect and laziness, rather than a lack of interest in your blog. 

Pt 7 - Of Submarines and Typewriters.

bing.............. bing........... bing..........

A hotel for kings and queens, surely! 

The sweet little display just inside Rob's front door. 

Feeeeeeeel the blick love.

A bit of Remington 2 love, while you're at it. 

A tired eyed yours truly, and the Standard folding with my name on it. (Robs blog)

Oh dear... look at those bags under my eyes. 

Ahhhhhh.... Next day.

Part of the display

Red! I see Red! And I see three typewriters I would LOVE to have. 

Rob fires up the Masspro, while Jane checks out the photos she had been taking. 

Rob giving Jasper his coveted (and genuinely rare) Nippo P-200

Now in Jasper's hands - where it may still do some literary damage. 

There's some interesting typewriters that I'll be posting about soon, that I picked up from Rob. Once again Rob, thanks for having us.

Will you be my Valentine letter, you filthy googling pervert?

Cast your mind back a year, oh typosphere, and remember what happened on my blog on Valentine's day 12 months ago.

Actually, don't strain your memory cells too hard... Here's a recap: 

Last year, my tortured letter to the Valentine typewriter that I had repaired became item number 4 on google's image search. As such, many love-lorn boys and girls came to read my blog looking for inspiration for romantic prose - only to find a blog entry on how I wished to smash my Valentine to pieces lady McBeth style.

Well, haven't things changed in the past year!

This year..... Guess where I am.

That's right.... I'm at number 3! I'm even beating Oprah's love quotes. Again I seem to be torturing lovers everywhere, and deflating their libido with my post-repair angst. 

In the last 24 hours my Groma was almost about to be pipped by my Valentine for popularity. 

Well.... I can't be deflating their libido that much. There has been a worrying trend in the search terms that have brought readers other than the typosphere members to my blog. Here's a little screen grab:

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm a very open minded man, and I like to think I'm rather worldly. Heck, I'm all for trying something at least once. Well, mostly... I'll have to rule out keychopping.

But.... what the ****.... is 'Platen Sex'? 

This is a serious entry. I see this in my search terms surprisingly frequently, so naturally I googled it myself and braced for the potential risk of seeing people doing things with platens that may be pretty much illegal in almost all American states. 

Oddly enough my blog about Ikea and their un-sexiness comes up as the second entry on google when you search for that term. But otherwise there's pretty much nothing to tell me what on earth 'platen sex' is. 

I have a theory. And the theory is that certain pepped up and excited men have been trying to google 'planet sex', but have been so jittery with enthusiasm, or so illiterate that they have mis-spelled it with comical and unfortunate results. 

Either way, like the lovelorn that unfortunately have become trapped in the pitfall that is my blog when they've been looking for something else, welcome! If you're going to put your feet up on the furniture, please take your shoes off first. And for those of you who are thinking of making yourselves a little too comfortable... keep your damn pants on. 

Has a typewriter? Must be a hipster...

Now... We've all seen this:

Typewriter in a park? Just add the word hipster, and you apparently have instant comedy. 

LOL! Right?! 

Right... 

Anyway, that 'meme' has been cycling about on the knuckle-dragger interwebs for a while now, and let's face it - it is pretty insulting to the guy photographed. I mean, like.... seriously... who takes a typewriter to a park anyway, right? It is 50 shades of weird to anyone that hasn't done anything interesting in their life, other than fly to Bangkok at huge expense in order to spend the entire trip getting drunk in a bar or pub just like one at home. 

For some reason I have an urge to put a label on anyone that labels someone as a hipster for using a typewriter - or something similar. 'Dipster' perhaps? 

Well it turns out that there's actually quite a compelling and interest story behind this typist. As I read it I felt sympathetic for him, not just as another typist, but as a person. He'd gone out and actually done something interesting. He went and did something different to the expectations of his family and friends, and actually created something. The fact that he created something that was positive and interesting, yet was belittled by keyboard commandos world wide that had dull and uninteresting lives lived in a perpetual cycle of doing the same dull lifeless routine that saw them lashing out at the rest of the world that wasn't trapped in the same hole, made me feel inspired.

Click here for the article.

It just reminds me about something Teeritz was talking about the other day - the utter dross of reality TV that people glue their social lives to here in Audtralia at the moment. It pretends to be art, but there's no art to it. There's no spontaneity. It is a performance, but it is a predictable performance.

Congratulations to this guy for getting himself out of his lounge room and doing something.

I think I can speak on behalf of the typosphere here,  when I say - we salute you.

Mum, the typosphere is in the letterbox again!

It is storm season again here in Queensland,  and we've had storms every night this week so far. This photo above was taken with my phone about 40 minutes ago, as I am waiting for this storm to hit and probably knock out the power for the evening. It won't be long till I'm back to blogging by candlelight again.

That said, I feel for the people who have suffered from the intense storms in the Philippines. The tragedy I have been watching on through the news has been almost unbelievable. I wish such news wasn't just played out for our entertainment value though. I wish I could jump on a plane and help the cleanup in the same way as I did after the floods here in Bris, but alas I think more boots on the ground like mine would just contribute to the problems they are having there.

However in other news, I've received some great items from the Typosphere lately.

Firstly, there's this wonderful envelope with some beautiful stamps, and a great little caption. There is also the familiar typeface of an Olivetti Graphika on the address label. 

It is of course from Richard Polt. The man that owns the Monarch 101 typewriter that I so unfortunately lust after, and the man that 'powers the typosphere'. With all that running that he does, I'm surprised he has time to write with his typewriters! 

Anyhow, I loved the stamps affixed to the front. 

I used to collect stamps once. It was one collection hobby that I haven't continued, but I still appreciate a beautiful stamp. 

Inside was the auction catalogue that I had quizzically 'won' from Richard's blog recently, along with a postcard. I just noticed the date of the auction, and I clearly need to get my butt into order if I'm going to bid on something!

But I also got something else from the typosphere that was supposed to be in my letterbox, but wasn't.

Rob Bowker will probably recognise this letter... sort of. You see, I used to have my paypal delivery address set to my old office that I use to work in. I stupidly had this set as default through paypal, but the Ebay default that I usually use paypal with, was to my actual home address.

As such I just assumed this letter would be heading home, and not to an address that I was no longer located at.

Subsequently, various departments at work bounced this envelope around in the internal mail for quite some time - each time adding a new location to the address line, until someone just got too lazy and instead propped the envelope against a whiteboard in a department that I occasionally wander into.

I currently work for three departments on separate days, so it was somewhat understandable that this could happen.

I eventually walked into the room where the envelope was propped, and after a few moments of surprised confusion after seeing my name on the envelope I excitedly picked it up and remembered that I what it was.

Tuh-dah! Post cards! 

Oh, I do love the stamps from the UK. So many variations on the one theme, but they are often beautifully presented. 

Right, now I had better remove that address from my Paypal. God knows what else I have bought that has gone to the wrong location. 

As you can see from this photo, the storm is really rolling in now. This snap was taken with my iPhone on the front deck about 2 minutes ago. You can JUST see the crack of lightening in this shot horizontal on the middle of the photo.

Dwayne, Burst mode on your iPhone 5s is your friend. (hold just hold your finger on the button).