I live with a typewriter habit. Some people sneak cigarettes or whiskey. I sneak Olivettis and Royals. The problem isn’t just storage space. The problem is my partner, whose memory is forensic and whose eyebrow can arch higher than a carriage return lever.
Why You Probably Shouldn’t Buy a Typewriter From Etsy or eBay
Everyone loves the idea of owning a typewriter. The romance of clacking keys, paper rolling through a platen, and the sense that you’re channelling Hemingway or Kerouac instead of just staring into yet another glowing rectangle. But before you open your wallet on Etsy or eBay, let’s have a serious talk about why this is usually a terrible idea.
When people trace the history of the typewriter, they usually start with Christopher Latham Sholes in the United States. His design of the 1870s became the first commercially successful machine and set the stage for a century of office life. But history is rarely that simple. In fact, more than a decade earlier, in a small village in South Tyrol, a carpenter named Peter Mitterhofer had already built the first functioning prototypes of a typewriter.
