Friday, March 14, 2014

The Mini North Carolina Type In

From left to right we have JP Huard, myself (Mark Petersen), and Brian Brumfield (with a maroon Corona 4, Underwood 3-bank, and Diplomat respectively)
If you don't know Brian you should spend more time on typewriterdatabase.com and you should also peek at his blog.  And you can see the reflection of Katie, the fourth of our little group, taking this photo.

I am pretty thoroughly excited about this...

15 comments:

  1. Wow those Oliver bacon slicers!

    ReplyDelete
  2. You finally got your 9! Congrats! So glad to see so many Typospherians getting together this month, and always great to see you guys! Hope all is well in your neck of the woods!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Things are pretty swell. I'm back to work and I have an Oliver to type on, pretty much set right? :)

      Delete
    2. Sounds like it to me! Congrats on the job as well! :D I was unsuccessful in finding one...so I went into business for myself. :3

      Delete
  3. Congratulations on the Type-in converse-in. Good everyone enjoyed the evening. Nice looking Oliver.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Replies
    1. I certainly will! Today might be warm enough to get out on the porch finally and clean up some machines... I shouldn't do the Ollie first but I just might...

      Delete
  5. An Oliver 3, and 5 were the start of my collection only about a year and a half ago, but I also grew up with typewriters, so it was more like going back too!
    Used to work in downtown Chicago at a theatre, and would look across the street at a beautiful brick and cast iron building called The Oliver Typewriter Company. I always wondered what an Oliver looked like!?
    Jump ahead many years to the day I walk into a local good junky junk store, and there are two different looking Oliver Typewriters! The owner says "you can have them both for $100.00 --- Sold! The rest is, as they say "history".
    But wait, there's more - my driving a flower truck work takes me right past Woodstock, Ill. home to ......, so I go looking around one day, and there it is - the huge grassy site of the Oliver factory, sadly now gone.
    But wait there's more...... just three days ago (passing through Woodstock again) I locate, across town from the Oliver site, the old Emerson/Woodstock Typewriter Company factory, and it's still standing, and restored beautifully as The Emerson Lofts condominiums. On the way home I stop at an antique mall and there's a 1946 Woodstock typewriter. I got it, of course.
    That's enough for now, but I love those Olivers, they've got to be one of the most interesting typewriters ever made! Good luck cleaning yours up!
    PS- Google Emerson Lofts, Woodstock, Ill. to see the old factory reborn.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wow, those lofts look awesome.
      I love the Oliver, it is so well designed. Just yesterday I discovered that when you remove teh carriage the drawband automatically attaches itself to the machine so you don't even need to worry about it. Brilliant.

      Delete
  6. Hey hey! Some great stuff coming along there. Beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
  7. P.S. Forgot to say, if you haven't seen the Oliver Typewriter Co. office building in Chicago, google that too. It's a Chicago city historic landmark, and has been restored too, although many years ago. The beautiful exterior decorative work is cast iron. Unfortunately much of the interior was gutted for use of the 3200 seat Oriental Theatre that's around the corner on Randolph St. but whose stage house now connects to the back alley side of the Oliver building for extra backstage space. The Oriental Theatre is where Judy Garland was discovered in 1933 when she and her sisters came to Chicago to sing at the Century of Progress Worlds Fair. She and her sisters, the Gumm Sisters filled in at one of the Oriental's live stage shows, when another act got sick...... and the rest is also history! Thanks, and let us know how the Oliver comes. Of course Marty Rice's Youtube "The Secret's of the Oliver" clips are invaluable. The Olivers were very well conceived, and executed machines!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Replies
    1. http://typewriterdatabase.com/192x-oliver-no-9.2325.typewriter

      Posted it on the database a while ago, got it all cleaned up and she types pretty well. Stringing the ribbon on one of these is horrible, but worth it.

      Delete