Collecting Old Typewriters Is a Rapidly Growing Hobby

It was a high school crush of sorts. In 1938, teen-ager Dan R. Post fell for an aging black typewriter known as the Blickensderfer No. 5 and coughed up $1.50 for it.

He didn’t know it at the time, but Post was embarking on an on-and-off obsession with typewriter collecting. Post, who publishes an Arcadia-based newsletter for other collectors, admits to having lost count of how many typewriters he now owns but adds that many serious collectors have amassed dozens if not hundreds of the machines.

Collecting old typewriters does not have the cachet of owning Renoir paintings or the ease of storage of, say, a thimble collection. But the hobby is gaining in popularity, enthusiasts contend, because only a minute number of manual and electric typewriters are produced anymore.

Several museums, including the Smithsonian, the Milwaukee Museum and the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, maintain typewriter collections. The Early Typewriter Collectors Assn. formed in Los Angeles last year and now has about 100 members worldwide.

“There are new (collectors) coming out of the woodwork all the time,” said Post, who has also written a guide to collecting old typewriters. “Antique typewriters are genuine collectors items because they speak well of a great time in the past.”

Prices can range anywhere from a few dollars for a common model in poor condition--an Underwood, an Olivetti or a Smith Corona III portable, for example--to up to several hundred dollars for rare machines.

Brooks, Crandall and Sholes & Glidden typewriters are among those seldom seen models that are in great demand, Post said. Some of the most highly prized machines today were considered “pretty crummy” when they debuted and quickly disappeared from the market, Post said.

“The prices are higher than they were 10 years ago because there are more collectors,” he said. “People will spend several hundred dollars now for a desirable machine where they used to spend $60.”

Some of the very early typewriters produced in the late 1800s were highly ornamented, hand painted with flowers, filigree and pin-striping or inlaid with mother of pearl. But as competition led to cost-cutting, “that was one of the first things to go,” Post said.

San Jose teacher James J. Rauen owns about 350 machines, but only about 150 are of interest to collectors, he said.

“One of the nice things is it’s not an expensive hobby compared to a lot of them,” said Rauen, who in August hosted a meeting that drew 25 collectors from all over the United States as well as two from Europe.

Post acknowledged that the hobby does have its down side.

“Anybody who collects has to accommodate them somewhere,” he said. “Pretty soon you don’t have a bedroom or a garage.”