I’ll tell you right off the bat that this is merely a photo safari—no game was bagged and brought home. But maybe it will be interesting for you to see the typewriters that I spotted today at the Ohio Valley Antique Mall in Fairfield, Ohio. Would you have bought any of these machines, in this condition, at these prices?
The back panel of this Super is disconnected:
I couldn’t find a price on this Silent-Secretarial:
The line lock on this KMM is stuck:
The last typewriter I saw was a good-looking one, but the backspace and platen ratchet aren’t working properly:
Improper balance of the ones I want vs. how much they want, so no. They'd have stayed there. (:
Smith-Corona Super for sure. The Silent Secretarial isn’t very common, but I’d want to examine it closer before buying.
If it's in as good a shape as it looks to be, the Super is an excellent value at $56.95.
Both the Super and the Clipper would've been in my car on the return trip home. SO PRETTY
The clipper may have followed me home. The others are either over priced or I have one in my collection. Seller seems to thing there's something special about the rusty Royal 10 at that high of a price.
Smith Corona Super looks good to me at that price.
These were all in one shop? Jeez, do they have six different evaluator-people doing the pricing?
M. Höhne, most probably. In the US, antiques are commonly sold in antique "malls" that provide many small booths for independent vendors. The vendors are marked on the price tags by a code, so that the proceeds can be appropriately distributed from the single point of checkout.
I don't buy typewriters, so the answer is not. But I am surprised by the signs "don't touch the keys". I guess you need to touch the key before buying a typewriters, don't you?
If you show yourself to be serious, of course the seller will let you test it. The signs are for when the things are unattended, to discourage people from messing with them. Kids, of any age, are well-known for banging hard on them and trying to jam the typebars. Antique shops have these signs on all kinds of susceptible items; we just don't notice what we are not interested in.
They look nice and all, but I have more than enough typewriters, and those machines are more than I'm willing to spend on a regular typeface. However if I had to choose one, I'd happily take that Silent Super home with me.
I'd have gone with that Underwood Touchmaster Five (with its amazing crinkle paint) and/or that white Royal 990 (the 890, if I remember correctly, has one less key)–especially since it lacks the usual carriage-return-lever-scrape on the hood.
i have an old typewriter that i wonder if you could help me identify. It’s a Hermes Baby but the keyboard is different.
Feel free to send a photo to me at polt@xavier.edu. I'm currently traveling, so my response may be a bit delayed.