One of my frequent weekly rituals is writing letters to family and friends, using one of my collection of vintage typewriters. One of the oldest is my Oliver No. 5, which was made in Chicago over one hundred years ago. It has a fairly unusual design, with typebars arranged to each side in a wing fashion. It is also a 3-bank machine, meaning there are three rows of keys, instead of the more familiar four. To provide all the common letters, numbers and symbols, it has two shift keys so that each key can provide three characters. To those familiar with a common keyboard as on more modern typewriters or on today's computers, this takes a little getting used to. But a week doesn't pass without me tapping out a letter to a family member or a close friend and sending it by mail, using one of these amazing mechanical marvels from the past.
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| Oliver No. 5 |
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