From the original receipt found with my church-bazaar find, a late-model Olivetti 32. Purchased for $99.50 in October 1975 (not including sales tax.) An online inflation calculator makes this $420.20 in 2011 dollars, or about the cost of a budget laptop. 2247 Market in San Francisco is currently Lime Restaurant.
Adhered to the front of a Smith-Corona Sterling, this fine badge from Key Typewriter in Sunnyvale, down in the heart of Silicon Valley. No search engine matches for this business, but the telephone number uses a three-digit exchange, which probably dates it from at least the 1960s.
This is inside the case lid of the same Sterling. Presumably when Key went the way of the buggy-whip, Century Business stepped in and got the previous owner's, um, business. Century is still around.
My favorite one by far, stuck to the side of my big Royal standard machine. I'm not sure if Berkeley Office Equipment morphed into Berkeley Typewriter or California Typewriter, or was a third business entirely. With a major University just down the street, there would have been a demand for administrative machines and student machines alike.
5 comments:
Mike, here are another three. No luck on Roberts of Bristol or Alliance of Mount Vernon, NY. I sent an e-mail to Ryan S Ryan of Dublin to see if my old Underwood could be one of theirs. I'll write a post if they get back to me.
These receipts & stickers really bring these typewriters' histories alive! Although I live only 200 miles from the SF Bay area, I am not familiar with any repair shops there. Are there any left? Precious few, I would imagine.
Challenge accepted
http://manualentry.blogspot.com/2011/08/theme-of-week-typewriter-service-firms.html
Very nice. I treasure my Clough's Typewriters of Swindon decal on my Olympia.
I think I'll have to have a go with this myself. I'll have at least 6 or so from various things stuck on or reciepts.
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