The Patina of Creativity

For the past few days I’ve had a back and forth with someone interested in buying one of my two Olympia SG1s. I’m willing to sell either for $75 plus postage, which in this case came to roughly $50. We live on opposite sides of the country. We also, apparently, live on opposite sides of typewriter collecting.

Neither SG1 is in perfect condition, but in ways I find endearing. Both are, and were, used. These aren’t “pretty” machines. They are long-haulers that can pull literary or secretarial weight. They did 50 years ago and they can do so today.

One word describes them: BUILT.

I said they weren’t perfect. Let me be specific because it is on the specifics that that the potential buyer and I differ in perspective.

The margin stop for the machine on the left no longer works. But the bell does, so the writer has been amply warned. This machine does not coddle. The baseline is minutely lower for the caps, but it almost looks intentional, particularly because its font is 11-point “Senatorial,” a squarish sans serif. Very modern and readable.

The other machine is in better shape but lacks the intriguing font. It has the omnipresent 11-point Times Roman. The lower and upper cases line up and the right margin holds firm against the colliding carriage.

But both typewriters share a blemish that troubled the would-be buyer. On each the chassis beneath the space bar show signs of a palm resting. The paint is worn thin from so many paused palms. You can see the blemishes on both sides, but, for some reason beyond me, they seem more pronounced on the right.

I’ve come to think of these blemishes as “inspiration marks.” While the palm rested, the muse played with phrasing and transitions, searched for just the right word. Entire plots may have been turned during these moments. Or just the right salutation, the one that sealed the deal, may have been chosen.

Here beneath the space bar, fingers at rest, palms at ease, change happened.

So I’m pleased that the pauses have left their mark on the SG1s. They are as much evidence of use the inked keys, worn ribbons and a breached right margin stop.

To me, these worn spots are the patina of inspiration.

As I write this, the buyer has not responded to my description of the blemishes. I wrote him that if he was interested in finding a blemish-free SG1, I was confident he would eventually be successful. Much of the fun of collecting is the search and the discovery.

I did not tell him that to my mind, a pristine SG1 is soulless, bearing no evidence of serving a cause, of aiding a spirit.

Old Fire and Brimstone

We typewriter-istas all have stories like this. There must be hundreds of them. The fun is as much in the stories and the people we meet as in the hoarding and caring for the old machines.

I had to go to Damascus to snag this one. No, not THAT Damascus. Damascus, Oregon, which is about a 45-minute drive east of Portland through a place called Happy Valley. (Yes, the road to Damascus passes through Happy Valley.)

The Olympia SG1 was advertised on Craigslist.com for $25. A strange price — either way too little or way too much. But there it was — intriguing. Beckoning.

You know the drill ....

I talked to the Craig's Lister, Richard, who said it was in excellent condition and had belonged to his wife's stepfather, an evangelical preacher, who had recently met his Maker and left behind his trusty SG1. Richard said the preacher wrote hundreds of sermons on the green Germanic beast.

The story alone was worth $5.

So I set out on the road to Damascus, playing with an offer of $20. (I wasn't exactly a motivated buyer as I already have an SG1 in my bloated collection.)

I had to enter Richard's semi-rural homestead through one of those automated security gates hung between ornamental, but solid brick pillars. You push a button on the intercom, then the stranger belonging to the disembodied voice risks mortal peril and pushes a button somewhere and the gate majestically swings open.

The compound was tidy with some fenced acreage surrounding two modest ranch style houses. The empty one was where Richard's in-laws had lived. Richard and his wife had held several estate sales, but no one wanted the SG1, which now resided forlornly on an otherwise barren workbench in the otherwise empty two-car garage.

The typewriter looked good. I liked where the preacher's thumb had worn the crinkle finish on the frame just to the right below the space bar. The big machine came with brushes, a pristine dust cover, and an owner's manual with a torn cover.

That was all to the good, but when I rolled in paper, several lethargic typebars balked. Four were frozen solid. No wonder no one wanted old "Fire and Brimstone" (the name I had secretly given the hefty Teutonic sermonizer).

That said, I knew the brushes, dust cover and owner's manual alone were worth $10 so that's what I offered Richard, who was slightly embarrassed that a machine he had represented as being in "excellent condition" wouldn't type. His belated confession was familiar: "I don't know anything about typewriters."

To him, I was freeing space in his deceased father-in-law's garage AND paying him $10.

Seemed like a deal.

To me, he was selling me two brushes, an owner's manual, a dust cover, a proud old hulk, a minister's working companion, and a mechanical challenge. All for ten bucks.

A bargain.

Done.

I wound my way back on the road from Damascus, through Happy Valley, across the Willamette River and up to my aerie in Portland's West Hills. I blew out the SG1's innards with compressed air and then shot Valucraft Multi-Purpose Lube Spray (endorsed by Matt McCormack at Ace Typewriter) at every conceivable linkage joint. Putting fingers to keys, one-by-one, I gently limbered the full board until every key was on ready alert, fully prepared to snap and hammer out words.

The restoration took all of 10 minutes.

Old "Fire and Brimstone" was back.

My fingers poised above the forest green keys, a sermon was in order: "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away," I typed, "and for 10 bucks, a sacred anointing with Valucraft Multi-Purpose Lube Spray, and the laying on of hands, a mere pilgrim to Damascus can heal and restore a once-mighty but forsaken Olympia SG1."

"Hallelujah!" I typed. "HALLELUJAH!"

Amen.

Back Space Ideas

In an effort to see what Back Space visitors might like to see on this site, I’ve asked Steve Brannon for his views. Steve, who lives in Richmond, Virginia, is a friend I’ve met through the Internet typewriter groups on Yahoo — Typewriter Forum and Portable Typewriter Forum.

The forums are stories in and of themselves. Their members are an amazing, dedicated assemblage of typewriter fanatics. And their numbers are constantly growing. Members span the globe and the generations.

Here are some of Steve's suggestions with my comments:

• Various essays on typewriters. I have gathered a few as I’ve run across them.
• A profile of Matt McCormack and his dad, Dennis, of ACE typewriter right here in Portland, Oregon. Actually I have a chapter about Matt and Dennis for a typewriter book I am slowly hammering out. I’ll share the chapter here soon. Matt recently appeared on a PBS “History Detectives” segment that tried to verify that a Corona #3 belonged to legendary World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle. The result of the investigation was inconclusive.
• Interviews with contemporary writers using typewriters. Famously Paul Auster and Larry McMurtry.
  
• Interviews with collectors. (What's with this obsession?)
  
• Interviews with veteran collectors and experts like Will Davis and Richard Polt.
• An interview with Jay Williams, a collector who is blind. He knows and cherishes his typewriters, in large measure, because of their touch.
• An interview with a key cutter, one of the folks who destroy typewriters for keys used to make jewelry. Many of us see the cutters as being like poachers who kill Elephants for their tusks. So what's their side of the story?
  
• An inventory of my 65 typewriters along with photos. Actually, I plan to illustrate each post with a typewriter photo, although I won’t get into the details of the particular machine I’ve shown, at least not yet. (I passed the above "surplus" Olympia SG1 on to Steve last year.)
  

Steve’s list is a great start. I hope others will add their ideas and comments.