Happy New Year! I hope you all had a wonderful time celebrating (or sitting at home in your jammies like I did). We’ve had a wonderful couple of weeks, between traveling to Charlotte to spend Christmas with family, and hanging out at home doing almost nothing this week. It’s been nice.
We had a blast hanging out with my husband’s entire family for Christmas. The weather was chilly in Charlotte, but not bitter cold — the perfect weather to enjoy a backyard firepit and s’mores.
On Christmas Eve, my sister in-law and I ventured out for some antique shopping and I finally scored something that has been on my wish list for a long time. You know I love sharing my thrifty finds with you, and this one I am very excited about! It’s an antique typewriter that I found at the Sleepy Poet Antique Market in Charlotte.
It needs a good cleaning — I’ve only wiped through a few of the million layers of dust that’s settled on it through the years. At under $30, I couldn’t pass it up even though it doesn’t work. I wasn’t planning on typing up any important manuscripts or anything with it, so I’m ok with it not being functional. I’m more interested in the history behind it and just how cool it is. Imagine the stories attached to it! I did some research and found that this particular typewriter was made by a company headquartered in New York, and I believe this model is from the 1930s. (A fully restored and functional version of this one is going for $1300.00 online!) Mine will never be worth that amount, and that’s ok. To me, its value lies in the fact that it’s a little piece of history. Imagine being a writer in the days before technology advanced to anything even remotely resembling today’s. In fact, Ernest Hemingway used this same brand of typewriter.
When I was a little girl, I had an electric typewriter and I thought it was the coolest thing on earth. I would just sit and type forever on that thing. My grandmother had an old typewriter when I was growing up (she still has it in her basement) — I’m guessing more mid-century era — and I used to type on that as a child too whenever I was at her house. I also used to play on my dad’s secretary’s typewriter when he would take my sister and me to his law office with him when we were kids. He would get some work done while we played, and we loved it! (We also used to make countless photocopies of our hands and faces on the Xerox machine while he was busy in another room.) Anyway, I guess I’ve just always gravitated toward typewriters.
I just think having this little typewriter (which I believe is made of cast iron and weighs a ton, by the way) is a cool reminder of how far we’ve come, and a nod to the writers before our time who never could have fathomed the existence of “blogs” or the ability to access information about anything on earth just by typing a few words into an online search engine. I think we take so many things for granted, so it’s nice to honor the past sometimes. I choose to do so by displaying this old hunk of metal in my home. 😉
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Cute find! Nothing more charming than an old typewriter. Remember when the keys would all jam if you typed too fast? 🙂 I found some at an antique store over Christmas but sadly they were in poor shape and over-priced. Happy New Year!
I totally forgot about the keys jamming! Yes! Most of the typewriters I’ve come across have all been over priced, so I was happy to snatch this one up for cheap. Happy New Year to you too!
It’s beautiful! When I was a little girl, I used to play on my grandmother’s typewriter that she used in secretarial college in the 30’s. The is something so satisfying about a typewriter. Plus, they are so much more attractive than a computer! (Even if you can’t still use it.)
Thanks Emily! I agree, they are so much more attractive than a computer! There’s just something special about them.