Typewriter Rescue

2020 finished off with some intrigue, while 2021 started with excitement, followed by disappointment and ultimately, a challenge…

I had first spotted the listing for the Voss typewriter during the final week of 2020. It contained almost no information about the typewriter itself other than it was in excellent condition, nor did it include any photographs of the machine (never an encouraging sign). Regardless, I fired off an email in response inquiring about the Voss with a few specific questions (was there a visible model name? did it come with a case? did one of the keys include the US Dollar symbol?). When I didn’t hear back from the seller I figured that the typewriter already sold.

Then a day or two later a somewhat cryptic response showed up in my inbox with a few answers to my questions. Some of them were accurate, some simply misinformed (the seller believed that model name to be Wuppertal, which is actually the name of the town in Germany where Voss typewriters were made) and some of them were just flat out wrong. An rather spotty exchange of additional emails and text messages were to follow until I found myself 50 miles from home on New Year’s Day, standing in the parking lot of a Carl’s Jr. hamburger joint with the daylight rapidly fading and a light drizzle falling. As it was almost dark out, I couldn’t get a real good look at the Voss, yet I could tell that the keys weren’t just sticky, but acting as if they were in quicksand.

That’s when the seller pointed out that this could be due to the smoke damage (never mentioned in the listing or the subsequent communications between us), but he assured me that they keys hadn’t been acting this way earlier. (If anything, I’m guessing that the keys weren’t moving at all before.) Moments after he mentioned the smoke damage, it hit me as if I had been struck by Muhammed Ali in his prime. Sweet Jesus did this typewriter reek! You might recall that last year here in Oregon where I’m located a good portion of our state was consumed by wildfires. The amount of damage done was overwhelming. Enough so that it managed to overshadow the pandemic that was going on. If anything could serve as a distraction from a pandemic, it’s a rapidly expanding series of wildfires covering a large portion of the state where you happen to live. As with COVID-19, these wildfires wreaked havoc, claiming a number of victims in the process. It seems that this Voss typewriter was a victim as well.

Initially I declined the opportunity to purchase the Voss, ready to walk away (or drive away in this case). I was disappointed both in the seller and in myself for things managing to reach this point. Better communications surely would have prevented me from making the trip to look at the rather sad typewriter. Then the seller offered to lower the price for a second time (the fact that he did so during our email exchange should have clued me in that something was up). I went ahead and made him a lowball offer which he accepted. At the point when I got the Voss home, I still wasn’t sure who got the worst end of the deal. But the heart of the matter is that despite the fact that this typewriter is going to take a lot of time and effort on my part, I liked the idea of rescuing a machine that otherwise might have been tossed out or neglected had I not come along (thanks to the wildfires of 2020).

The reality is that I don’t really know all that much about Voss typewriters in general. But leave it to Joe Van Cleave to put out an incredibly informative video detailing his friend’s Voss ST24 (the same model as the green machine that I purchased). That really helped me to understand how some of the unique controls worked on this particular worked on this particular machine. Looking over the one I bought after referencing the Typewriter Database, I’ve determined it is a 1955 model (it appears that this is the first year that the ST24 model was produced). One nice thing about this ST24 (besides the 11 character per inch typeface, which I love) is that it came with a pretty impressive hard shell case. Like the typewriter itself, the case is in good visual shape, but man does it ever stink — much worse than the typewriter itself. (When I’m near the case, I’m reminded of camping, at that point in time when the wind blows all of the smoke from the campfire right in your face.)o

I’ve now been cleaning this machine for the better part of the past two days and am beginning to feel hopeful that I’ll be able to overcome the impacts of the smoke damage, at least in the case of the typewriter itself. The hard shell case might present an even greater challenge. I’ve no got all of the features of this ST24 working as they should and was able to type out this entry with it. Stay tuned to see if I have any better luck with the case. This Voss typewriter certainly seem worthy of a nice case that doesn’t stink. I have no idea of just how many other typewriter rescues might lie ahead for me, but for now I’m just hoping that I can pull this one off successfully. Thus far I am encouraged.

AFTERTHOUGHTS: I forgot to mention in my above post that when I haven’t been spending hands-on time with the Voss, I have been keeping it stored in a box along with an open canister of a product named “Ozium” (it is labeled an air sanitizer”). In addition to the general cleaning this typewriter has been undergoing, the Ozium seems to be making a noticeable difference thus far at eliminating the smoke stench from the typewriter.