They're True To Type And Without The Byte -- Now Antique, Typewriters Are A Trendy Collectible

The chairman of L.C. Smith Premier Typewriter issued a famous complaint.

Unhappy with the turn-of-the-century typewriter's "blind-strike" technology, in which keys were typed on the back side of a sheet of paper, Lyman C. Smith demanded a friendlier system.

Typists never saw what they were typing, Smith lamented. It was time to move forward! he exhorted. But the board voted against Smith.

So the typewriter titan - who also built Seattle's first skyscraper, Smith Tower, in 1914 - quit his namesake to form L.C. Smith & Bros. Typewriter. Later known as Smith Corona, the company became a leader in standardizing today's typewriters and personal computers.

Now, with the approach of another turn of the century, fortunes have shifted again. Smith Corona is preparing to emerge from bankruptcy court, where it was sent by the silicon chip. And antique typewriters suddenly have regained favor. They are part of a collectibles phenomenon known as "obsolescent office technology."

This trend, largely the product of Smith's success at imposing his vision on the typewriter trade, also encompasses many successful innovations. People are collecting antique adding machines, cash registers, calculators, even typewriter-ribbon tins.

Deep-pocketed investors in the United States, Japan and Europe - particularly in Germany and the United Kingdom - are willing to pay up to tens of thousands of dollars for these odd relics.

Joel Volk, general manager of Van Nuys, Calif.-based Mercury Office Machines - which displays a small collection of historical typewriters in the company lobby - said, "I've sold typewriters for more than $10,000 and bought them for less than $1. Not necessarily the same typewriter, but that's the range."

Collectors prize early automation technology for its role in shaping American society: creating the modern office, bringing women into the work force, contributing to women's suffrage and lifting the industrial revolution into the information age.

Thor Konwin, who has emerged as one of the world's authorities on the subject of antique typewriters while amassing one of the largest collections, believes the silicon chip has received too much credit for sparking the information age.

"I believe it was the invention of the office technology of the 1870s that put us on the information superhighway," said Konwin, owner of This Old Shop in Cathedral City, Calif., a museum-quality showroom for 900 antique typewriters.

In one decade's time, he said, American inventors introduced electricity, the telephone, typewriter, phonograph and stock ticker-tape machine.

The primitive intersection of these technologies often is apparent in Konwin's collection. It speaks to the curious passion typewriter collectors express for failed and proven products alike.

For instance, Konwin's favorite collectible typewriter is the "index" machine, which features a phonograph-like stylus or dial. The left hand selected one letter while the right hand punched a key that reproduced it.

He likens these tedious styluses to "the first mouse."

For all the typewriter's impact on society, however, the incredible writing machine was rendered virtually obsolete a century after its invention by the silicon-powered personal computer.

Antique-typewriter collector Anthony Casillo of Garden City, N.J., a typewriter-repair expert who now specializes in computer products, said, "I watched the typewriter die. For all intents and purposes it is not a true business tool. It's just something people tolerate. Or can't get their computer to do just yet," such as completing forms and envelopes.

Yet global computer networks today lead the typewriter's return to vogue as a collectible.

At least three major Internet sites in the U.S. feature antique typewriters. Several more flourish in Europe. The electronic forums serve as clearinghouses for buyers and sellers and provide an outline of prices in the emerging secondary market.

Volk, the son of a typewriter repair man, celebrates the irony: "The Internet is really revitalizing this most archaic technology."