Monday, June 4, 2018

Another Thrift Store Find

Michigan has typewriters.  Maybe not in abundance or at $5.00, but this is the 5th one I found since moving here a year ago.  In the 15 years I lived in Florida I found an electric and 2 or 3 wedges in the wild. Go back to Virginia when I was not collecting typewriters (about 20 years ago) I would see at least one typewriter at every yard or garage sale and several each time I visited Happy's Flea Market in Roanoke.



Inside, a very nice SCM.  This typewriter is quite clean.

Oh!  Look what is in the left corneer.


Looks unused.  The key tops look a bit scuffed by the slugs.

Even has automatic 5 space paragraph indentation, and a tab set/clear rocker.

Under the tiny plastic box is a diagram for the way to store the Change-A-Type set.  It shows the box in this orientation.




This machine is quite clean. Looks like it was hardly used.


Notice the key tops on this Classic 12.  They are not all the same height.  I have seen this on many Classic 12, Galaxie 12, and Sterling typewriters of the 70s

Notice the key tops on the Forecast 12?  They are all the same height.



This book arrived in the mail today.


The images were made using my cell phone and I did very little editing other than cropping and attempting to get them all the same size. The typecast and book images are from my scanner and should be the width of the blog, but they are loading either too small or two large even though the pixel width is the same as the blog pixel width. 

Seems like I am back in electronics school when I learned ground is ground is ground except....  So just as a grounded conductor may not be the same ground potential I guess Google pixels, monitor pixels, and scanner pixels are not the same.

One day I'll get around to calibrating my monitor to my printer to the scanner, and maybe even my Olympus digital imaging devices. I'll need to if I decide to do post processing of the RAW files.

10 comments:

  1. Nice find! I wasn't a fan of those key-tops, hence I owned a Classic 12 briefly. :)

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  2. I always see people with those Classic 12's, and a part of me want to bother picking one up at a point just to see what I think of 'em. Nice finds, the Sears lines are always a bit odd.

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  3. Wow, neat rebrand, and the math kit is rare as far as I know! The repeat spacer is hard to adjust, but if you keep experimenting with nudging it around you will find the right place.

    Hope you enjoy the book. As a former Floridian, I think you will get a laugh from the Mickey Mouse poem.

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  4. yep, the math kit is desirable, and the Forecast is a pretty top-of-the-line machine. I'm curious if the ribbon is actually a 4-color one, supported by the 4-color switch. You'll be able to tell if there's a grommet in the middle, splitting the ribbon between the part that has the first two colors and the part that has the other two.
    The 4-color Sears ribbon is explained in this manual for the electrified version:
    http://munk.org/typecast/2014/03/25/sears-medalist-and-electric-power-12-owners-manual-1968/

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    1. I was curious too. That was the first thing I checked since the cartridges have red/black on the left one and blue/green on the second. Only has red black. Not as much as a regular spool either. I also wanted to see if I need to use those cartridges or I can use a regular spool. Real (the metal ones not the Universal that do not work on any typewriter) spools work fine. I think the cartridges will be difficult to find.

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  5. There is nothing feeble about your eyes Bill, I have a feeling you could spot an old typwriter from miles away 😀 Looks like you found yourself a special prize with this one!

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  6. That change-a-type kit alone makes this an excellent find!!!

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  7. I recently came across one of the change-a-type mathematics kits in the attic. Seems unused (?) and complete, in the original packaging. Anyone have an idea what it might be worth? Thanks!

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    Replies
    1. They generally sell for around $10.00 (USD), and sometimes more on Ebay.
      Sorry for the delay. I've been ignoring blogger and the new interface does not display comments awaiting moderation. A google improvement.

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