UPPERCASE is open one more day (December 23 from 10am - 5pm) before taking a break. The store and online shop will reopen on January 5. Posts to the UPPERCASE journal will resume after Christmas for a year-end wrap up, so for now I'll leave you with this vintage Christmas card produced by a typewriter-loving photographer and his family back in the 60s. Merry Christmas!
I took photographs of each of the machines before most were sold off at the typewriter event, creating a virtual collection of typewriters I have known and loved.
There couldn't be a more perfect tree for me! (Yes, this is an artificial tree coming out of a typewriter base. The most homely but wonderful thing I've ever found on ebay. I have no idea how old it is or where it was made.)
The UPPERCASE Typewriter event was a great success and seven lovely typewriters found new homes for Christmas. Thank you to all the eager typists who came early to claim their favourites. I have two remaining machines – one is a fully-functional beautiful grey Olivetti Lettera 31 with a teal-blue case. The other is a stunning black and white Underwood 450 that is in beautiful cosmetic condition but mechanically-challenged. Both remain on display in UPPERCASE.
Perfect packaging for typewriter ribbons by the Miller Line, recently acquired for my ribbon tin collection.
The Royal Quiet De Luxe Portable. My all-time favourite typewriter — classic 50s design in oh-so-appealing colours. And great advertisements, too!
This is a movie still from the 1930s of Arthur Lake entering an LC Smith Typewriter Store, one of the many photographs of typewriter memorabilia I have in my collection. Does anyone know what film this is from?
Alas, the days of ordering a typewriter from an Eaton's catalogue are long gone.
Did you know that the Royal Typewriter company's Calgary office was located on 6th Avenue and 1st Street on the main level of the Lougheed Building (Grand Theatre) from the 1920s to the 1940s? It is nice to know that I am carrying on the typewriter tradition on the other side of the city block! If anyone has any images of the typewriter office from that time, I would love to see them!
{images above from a Remington Typewriter ad, October 1956, personal collection.}
In homage to the typewriter advertising mirrors of old, I have created a new version for the modern typist. "Type Strong Type Happy" shall be the motto of the UPPERCASE typewriter club. (This mirror and some other typewriter mirrors will be in the online shop soon.)
Celluloid advertising mirrors were common in the early 1900s and were mainly used to advertise products to women, such as hygiene products, household appliances and foodstuffs. Mirrors were also a popular giveaway in promoting typewriters. {The images above from current ebay auctions, the typewriter mirrors are from Chuck & Rick's Typewriter Museum.}
"Celluloid is generally regarded as the first modern plastic. It was introduced in 1871 by the Celluloid Manufacturing Company of Albany, NY. The use of celluloid began with the manufacturing of billiard balls and was intended as a replacement for ivory. However, by the late 1800s it was used for all sorts of products from billiard balls to bobbin lace prickers, bracelets, button hooks, buttons, cameo brooches, cameo earrings, charm bracelets, dolls, folding toothpicks, fountain pen bodies, guitar picks, hair combs, hand mirrors, hat pins, knife handles, letter openers, match safes, mechanical pencils, money clips, necklaces, paperweights, pin-packs, pocket mirrors, ring boxes, rulers, shoehorns, stick pins, tatting shuttles, thimbles, toys, vanity boxes and many other items.
The celluloid products mentioned above were made between the late 1800s and 1940s. Buttons were made by the millions for use on clothing and jewelry such as brooches, earrings, bracelets and necklaces also saw wide spread use. Vintage fountain pen bodies made of celluloid are a very popular collectible today.
Some of these products were advertising giveaways distributed by every kind of business all across the United States. The most popular advertising celluloid giveaways were pin-backs and pocket mirrors."
This sweet orange Hermes portable is one that got away, but this fine little Journalist is on its way to UPPERCASE! Check out that blue spacebar. Call me a nerd, but that's sexy!
I am expecting quite a few typewriters in the next couple weeks — and they will all be for sale here in the store. We will have a typewriter event when they're polished and ready for their many admirers. If you'd like to add your name to the growing list of folks wanting to buy a typewriter this Christmas, please email me. (Sorry, the typewriters will only available to local Calgary customers.) I will be stocking typewriter ribbons as well.
Love Letters from typewriter ribbon by Alex Synge (thanks to nozap). Followed by Alphabetbook by Harpy on Flickr, whose curving book shapes look ribbon-like to me. Love, below, also found on Flickr.
This beauty is the Royal Aristocrat in robin's egg blue with touches of aristocratic gold and business-minded beige. It types wonderfully with its fresh black and red ribbon and is for sale in UPPERCASE. ($100 includes ribbon and carrying case.)
Ghost Types Help On Typewriter - video powered by Metacafe
Typewriters have been thought to act as a channel for pyschic experience and communication with spirits. Author Darren Wershler-Henry explores this aspect of typewriter lore in his book, The Iron Whim.
Poetic Home will be posting seasonal decorating ideas this coming week and her first post caught my eye! I am fond of using my typewriters as decorative elements in my home and in UPPERCASE.
Here's a nice display found on Flickr:
Cover by Christy Batta
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