We can help you sell Antique
Typewriters & Early Antique Office Antiques!!
We are active full time antique dealers in vintage
office
related antiques and early antique typewriters.
We buy, sell, and deal in many different office antiques and collectibles from near the turn of the
last century. We conduct our
antique sales from our sister website
www.Patented-Antiques.com
We can help you sell office related antiques such as early
antique staplers,
mechanical pencil sharpeners,
antique check protectors,
antique calculators / adders, vintage slide
rules,
and more. I am talking about pieces from the turn of the
century or before. I am not talking about Office equipment from the
1930's and later, and I am not talking about used office furniture.
I have provided addition specific information on some of the specific categories of office antiques on other
pages at this site and
have attempted to lay out the criteria or
guidelines for the age or vintage and condition
of the things we
deal in. We can help you sell these antiques through our
consignment sales program, oftentimes for far more than you can realize
selling them locally or elsewhere on the internet. There is a
separate pages at this site for
Pencil Sharpeners,
and for
electric or
fuel fans and
calculation devices. Please visit those pages if that is what
you have. On the right there are links to pages with past sales
results with additional info and prices pieces have previously sold for.
Please contact us at
LCM@AntiqBuyer.com
if you have EARLY PRE 1920 office related antiques that
you want to consign with us. If you have additional questions please
see the
FAQ page,
or other informational pages you will find in the left hand column.
Condition
Condition is critical to the
value of all antique & collectible typewriters and other office antiques. With
most office collectibles
and antiques the earlier
the better
and the more unusual the better ----- and more valuable.
There are few typewriters or other office antiques that
date from later than the 1920's that are considered desirable or command
good prices. People might be buying them, but it is because they can buy them cheap.
Typewriters such as those made by Underwood, Corona, Remington, Oliver, and others, unless they are the first model of
that typewriter
are poor sellers and not
much in demand. Simply check eBay to confirm that.
Antique typewriters from the turn of the century or earlier, and typewriters & early office machines
that have a different appearance from the norm are usually of interest and if you will look at the
pictures that I have provided here you will get a sense of what I mean.
These features would include typewriters called Index
typewriters. These vintage typewriters have unusual indexing devices instead
of standard keyboards (like the machine to the right). Most index
style typewriters sell in the 300 - 3000 dollar range depending on the
condition and exact model and there are a few
notable exceptions that can be worth more. It is all in the details.
Any typewriter whose keyboard does not spell out QWERTY as the first six keys
on the top left side of the
keyboard is going to be an unusual & collectible typewriter.
Most vintage typewriters
that have this characteristic have values in the 4 figure range.
Antique Typewriters that have double
keyboards (one each for upper and lower case) or curved keyboards,
or keys that are made of wood would qualify as unusual as well. Some
of these are pretty common while others are very rare. Depending on
the model, and name, machines like this can sell for 300-500 and up to 5 figures
for rare & unusual models.
Antique typewriters that have
keys that strike the paper from below or behind are desirable and collectible
as well. These are referred to as upstrikes or grasshoppers. In other words antique typewriters that have different features from those that you see on most
machines have the most potential to be collectible and thus more valuable.
Most typewriters from the 50's and later seen at the thrift stores or at most garage sales are too late and too
common to have much collector value.
The picture at the top of the page on the left above is of a
vintage typewriter
called the New Franklin and is an
example of an
antique typewriter that has
a curved keyboard. Another well known
machine that had this feature on its earlier models is the Hammond
typewriter. The values for most versions of these are in the
mid 3 figures to the low 4 figures.
The Hammond is a good example of the types of changes
that a typewriter could go through during its production period over the
years, and how different models of it have different values.
The first model Hammond had a curved keyboard with wooden
keys that almost looked like small piano keys. This is the most
valuable and as expected hardest to find model. Later models
were offered with either curved or straight keyboards, and the keys
themselves developed into something very similar to those on most later machines
found today. The typewriter on the right is a #12 Hammond and is
considered a relatively common machine and can be found quite
easily. They also produced what is known as the Multi-Plex another
relatively common typewriter.
Names of some other desirable curved keyboard
typewriters include the Polygraph, Imperial, Salter,
Columbia Bar Lock and Crandall to name just a few.
The next few pictures are of more
index typewriters, or
keyless typewriters. Many
machines or typewriters that have this feature
instead of the typical keyboard are good collectibles and in demand. One of
the best known is the Odell which was first
patented in 1887. These came in several models numbers, each having subtle
differences from the first model. Again the first model is
considered the hardest to find. Their value can range from just a
couple hundred for well used beat up models to $1000.00 or more for nice
ones in their original box like the one above.
It should be noted that there are
other index typewriters that are very similar in appearance with different
names on them that were produced either under
license from the patent holder, or as with some models of calculators and
other office devices, as knockoffs or copies of the real thing that were
offered on the market in competition to the real version.
There is a
lot of room for further research and documentation to find out all the
history of many of the different typewriters. While the Odell
and the French Virotyp
pictured above were based on a round design, other
typewriters with an indexing feature were straight like the Merritt
index typewriter. These typewriters were
very popular
as attested to by the number of machines that have survived today.
It must have been a combination of low cost and the notion that most people's
handwriting was so bad that they needed to spend the time fiddling
with one of these contraptions in order to have their thoughts understood
on the receiving end. I wonder how many words a minute were possible
with one of these.
Some other names of early patented typewriters that operate
in a similar mode and that I would be interested in buying are The
Hall, Champion, Peoples, Columbia, and Crown, to name just a few.
The typewriters
seen above, and described here and on the
archive sale result pages are examples of the
caliber, condition and quality of office antiques that I am primarily interested in
and can help you sell.
If you have any antique typewriters or other office
related antiques similar to the examples
shown below that you want us to help you sell and consign to our sales pages at
www.Patented-Antiques.com, please contact us at
LCM@AntiqBuyer.com
To see examples of office related antiques
that I currently have for sale please go to our sister site
at www.Patented-Antiques.com and
visit the numerous sale pages you will find there.
Thank you!!
Larry & Carole
