The Venice Type-In and Plumeria: The Grand Debut of the Oliver No. 5 Print Type
Note: This is a long one. There are a lot of images and scanned documents, as I kept everything that was left in our machines. I think that they will say volumes about the flavor of the day, perhaps more than the typecast itself. I am going to try to present images in the best order I can, interspersed with relevant text. What came with the Oliver will be posted immediately after the typecast, followed by photos and text from the type-in itself. Sorry for the infodump; I didn't realize I had so much until I began scanning! So take a potty break, get a snack and drink, then pull up the seating implement of your choice and enjoy!
The PDF's of the manual and advertising can be found, in small size, here and here and for full sized versions, here and here. Again, huge thanks to JP of Anything Goes for converting the JPEGs into PDFs!
And now, onto things from the Type-In and after...
Raffle first prize winner, typing on John Lennon's Imperial!
Me typing on Plumeria, with some hellacious performance anxiety!
Big IBM in the foreground is also ours. Picked it up there. Young lady in the foreground provided the awesome Polaroid of Plumeria above. Thank you!
The 'Belle of the Ball' at home, next to mustachioed duct tape.
And now for the famous machines:
Orson Welles' typer that he wrote 'War of the Worlds' with. Couldn't get a photo of the info card for him or John Lennon; too many people in front.
John Lennon's Imperial. It was right next to Ted Kazynski's stripped-down typer.
And now for a bit more Oliver worship:
I hope to see you all at next year's type-in!
On the way home, I got choked up again thinking about the documentary and how much use the Oliver saw. The previous owner wanted the machine to be shared and enjoyed, and that it certainly was. I think she would have been ecstatic. For those of you who couldn't go, please check out Christopher Lockett's Facebook page for information on his documentary 'Typewriters (In the 21st Century)' and to L.A. Marler's website to view her typewriter artwork and for purchasing information.
There are angles I didn't cover, for them, check out Streamlines De Luxe
and A Typewriter A Day Keeps the Doctor Away For names I forgot, photos that I should've taken and didn't and two more, unique perspectives. Also, please forgive my gratuitous typos; I really can type much better than that...and can spell 'almost' without spellcheck.
Use proper spelling and grammar as weapons (and thank you for reading this incredibly long post!)
-Anna.
PS-Check this out, the Aristocrat, Remie Noiseless and Ollie 5 made it into a publication! (second photo down) An irreverent and fun read.
Thank you for this great coverage of what must have been an amazing event!
ReplyDeleteI imagine that the intensity created by all those famous typewriters, combined with the sheer number of people fascinated by all the machines, must have amplified your experience of the Type-In ten-fold.
Religious Typospherian experience, yes.
Thanks Cameron! I was actually surprised at the amount of people there; at least sixty, more than likely even more. I hope they all enjoyed it as much as I did. The energy was definitely buzzing; it was a unique and wonderful experience, to be sure!
DeleteExcellent work.
ReplyDeleteThank you Will! Nice to see you here.
DeleteThe type-in looks absolutely wonderful. Thanks for documenting it so well.
ReplyDeleteYour Oliver 5 is a beauty! That letter is very interesting; they weren't making Olivers in the US anymore by 1932, but obviously the supply and repair business continued. (They still made them in the UK up into World War II.)
Thanks Richard! It was a fantastic day, and documenting it was just part of the fun.
DeleteThere are some condition issues that aren't readily apparent with the 5, but they all have to do with the paint and mainly on the back side. The shift is just an eensy bit sluggish and, sometimes after shifting from lowercase to capital, it has to be manually pulled back to true or the letters end up misaligned. The pulley is brand new; I ended up ordering one of the steel ones from 'The Oliver Store' on ebay. And it's still a little sticky and in need of some oil. Mostly simple fixes.
The year was one of the reasons I was so surprised to see the letter myself. I couldn't remember the exact year Oliver moved its operations to England (it seemed like it was in the early twenties) but I knew it was a good while before 32. I thought it quite interesting to see an official letterhead, send froma representative at that late date.
very nice post. I envy you the printype on your oliver, mine is regular pica.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to watch kids respond to typewriters - they really seem captivated.
Thanks Peter! It was by chance that I came across it, and luck that the seller took my offer. I felt I got a pretty decent deal on it, given the condition, accessories and ephemera that came with it. Now I need a Standard 5 for the variation!
DeleteIt was kind of fascinating to watch the kids with the machines. There were two young men there, one twelve, the other even younger, who had their own collections of typewriters and knew exactly what they were doing with them. They may end up meeting us in Long Beach next month for the Queen Mary II type-in. The older of the two told me 'If you ever decide to sell that Oliver...' If we're still in touch in a few years and he hasn't added one to his collection by that late date, who knows? Hahaha.
Great!! one day maybe in Rome...
ReplyDeleteSo happy to see you here, Antonio! If you do have one in Rome one day, we would love to see the photos!
DeleteSpectacular!!! Congratulations on this perfect day! The girl with the pink helmet pays due respect to what can be dangerous machines at times - the "body of evidence" and the writers' writers are fantastic!
ReplyDeleteLooks like you guys had a ball!
ReplyDeleteAhhhhhh........ Oliver porn! Tanks for the photos!
Haha so nice, you posted twice! (couldn't resist)
DeleteWTF happened there?!
DeleteMy guess is you got all excited and hit enter twice, hee hee.
DeleteLooks like you guys had a ball!
ReplyDeleteAhhhhhh........ Oliver porn! Tanks for the photos!
Oh, we did! The only thing that could have made the day better was if more of the Typosphere were present and there was a tad more diversity in the machines, not that there wasn't plenty to begin with.
DeleteHahaha, Oliver Porn indeed! It will be interesting in the coming months to see how many and what variations of photos of this machine and the event itself make it to the public. The lady who made the Polaroid for us also took 3-D photos of the Ollie, so I'd love to see what gets done with them! There were members of the press there as well, so I've been keeping an eye on news sites to see what turns up.
WHat fun! And I have to say, I'm digging them Olivers.
ReplyDeleteThanks Ton! I absolutely adore my Olivers. And Gargoyle and Plumeria have a new little sis on the way, as a No. 9 will be joining them by the end of the week!
DeleteI hope this type-in does become an annual thing. It was the most fun I'd had in quite some time.
Oh man, I wish I had a time machine to pop in the type-in.
ReplyDeleteBuuuuuut, the Doctor doesn't want to visit me so I'll have to be happy with posts like yours.
Hee heee :D
Fantastic post, and thank you fro scanning EVERYTHING :D
You could build your own TARDIS from typewriters!
DeleteThank you! Haha, I really did scan everything! I didn't feel the post would be complete without it.
Great photos and commentary! Thanks for the thorough documentation. The Oliver is a wonderful machine. I'm glad it serves you well.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThank you Dwayne! I really adore my Ollies--they are my favorites out of all my typers. The 5 was a real workhorse on Sunday, for many people! It was wonderful. It was nice to see the machines celebrated and appreciated! And the documentation was my pleasure. I thoroughly enjoyed it!
DeleteThis post was well worth the wait. Fantastic! Thank you for all the detail and the photos are wonderful. I have had an Oliver on my wish list for about a year. I am just a bit shy about getting one on Ebay that will need shipped.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much, Bill! Although I didn't even think to get a photo of the front of the building and didn't know if I'd be allowed to photograph the artwork, so I'm glad to see that was done on the other two blogs I linked.
DeleteI can't say I blame you, there. My one shipping experience with Ollies was not the best one, but I have another on the way so we shall see what happens. There are none that I have found in this general vicinity that have been within my price-range save for the 3, and after winning the bid on Ebay, I was able to arrange to meet the seller so it worked out very well. I'll let you know what happens with the in-transit 9.
The history that came with the Oliver is fantastic. I love finding stuff like that with machines. Also, great re-telling of what sounds like it was a marvelous day. I cannot wait until my first type in!
ReplyDeleteThanks Ken! The more background and general 'stuff' I can get with a machine, the better, haha. If you have an Oliver 5, I encourage you to download the manual; it's now the best available online...no offense to the last who xeroxed and uploaded theirs.
DeleteOh you will have an absolute blast! Of course, this event was far larger than I thought it would be; I hope the one on the Queen Mary is just as big! I'm glad you enjoyed my 'reporting', haha!