Lunch with an old typewriter

I’m not sure how it happened, but somehow Carrie ended up with two old typewriters from her Papa Rod (my stepdad), and his entire super cool old camera collection. I’m just a little jealous! Anyway, with her recent craft room cleanout, she decided that she didn’t have room for both typewriters so she begrudgingly allowed me to keep one at my house.

It’s such a cute little typewriter, an old toy made in the 1950’s (I think) and like all of Rod’s old toys, it’s in fantastic condition.

The ribbon was really faded and I wanted to be able to use this little typewriter from time to time, so on a lunch hour last week I took it over to a local typewriter repair shop to see about having the ribbon replaced.

It was so much fun taking Rod's Carrie's my typewriter into the repair shop and seeing the look of excitement on the shop owner’s face. It was also really cool to hear him say that he’d only ever had one in his shop before – a red one that was pretty beat up. He went on and on about the great condition my little blue typewriter was in, and while he was tinkering around with replacing the ribbon, I got up the nerve to ask if I could take a few photos to share on my blog.

He graciously agreed, and we chatted about the typewriter business as I happily snapped photos around his shop. I asked how he got started in the typewriter business and he told me that his grandfather had started it, at that location, over 40 years ago.

I asked him other important questions like "Do you ever take the letter keys off the machines to sell to artists?" He told me that some typewriter enthusiasts really frown on removing the letter keys, but he’s done it on occasion, only if the machine itself was beyond repair.

He was able to take a full-sized typewriter ribbon and cut it down to size for my little toy machine, then he re-wound the cut ribbon around the spool, popped it in and struck some keys to test it out. Tap-tap-tap... Perfect!

 

At the end of my visit I paid $9 and he carried my typewriter out to the car for me. I thanked him and told him how much I enjoyed spending my lunch hour in his shop. I’m pretty sure he enjoyed it too. He got to see a cool old toy, and had a customer really appreciate his business and the awesome collection of typewriters there.

The repair shop is located in downtown Mesa, Arizona ~ “Mesa Typewriter Exchange” near the intersection of Main and MacDonald. If you have a need for repair, are looking to purchase an old typewriter, or just like to look at cool old machines, I highly recommend a trip to downtown Mesa.

It's like a typewriter museum!

♥