A Typer’s Dozen: Robert Messenger

One of the things I hoped to accomplish with this blog, even before launching it, was to feature some of the personalities who are active in the typewriter community. I wanted to turn the tables on those who have worked so hard and given so much of their time to shine the spotlight on these wonderful machines, instead placing these personalities themselves in the spotlight so to speak. As such, I have identified a few people in particular to whom I personally am most grateful, as I have repeatedly benefitted from the knowledge that they’ve shared with the rest of us. I wanted to learn a bit more about them and was guessing that I wouldn’t be the only one. So I created a series of questions that I would pose to those willing to participate in what  I’m calling “A Typer’s Dozen” for lack of a more creative title.

First up in this series is Robert Messenger of oz.Typewriter fame. When I take interest in something new, I tend to go all out when it comes to researching the subject at hand. So it goes with typewriters. As such, I’ve run across Robert’s blog enough times to have lost count long ago for it is a true treasure trove of information — not only about these machines but also about their place in history. I continue to marvel at the level of detail that Robert is able to dig up about both the typewriters themselves as well those personalities who will forever be linked to these machines (in no small part thanks to Robert himself). 

As I poured over Robert’s incredibly detailed and informative responses, the breadth and depth of information that he shares on oz.Typewriter now makes total sense to me. I’m very grateful to Robert for his willingness to participate in A Typer’s Dozen and I’m sure that after you’ve read through his responses, you’ll be feeling the same way. Thanks Robert!

Q: How many years have you been a typewriter enthusiast/collector, and how many typewriters would you estimate that have you owned in total over this time, including those machines that you’ve sold, loaned out or given away to others?

A: I’ve been using typewriters for more than 64 years, but it wasn’t until 1999 that I started to collect them and take an interest in their history and the way they were designed and built. I had used typewriters from the age of nine before entering print newspaper journalism in 1965, when typewriters were still a long-standing work tool. That remained the case until the mid-1980s, when typewriters began to be phased out of newspaper newsrooms. But I continued to use typewriters at home throughout that period and well into the 1990s. From the time I started collecting them, I would have amassed well in excess of 1500 machines, ranging from an 1878 Remington 2 to “thermal” electronic typewriters of the 1990s. I think I reached a peak of 975 in my home at one time, in about 2005. In the earlier days of my collecting, I considered I was undergoing a self-funded “apprenticeship” by taking machines (mainly Silver-Seikos and Nakajimas, which were plentiful) completely apart to find out how they worked, then nutting out how to put them back together again. There were many “hits and misses”, but it was well worth it. Back then typewriters such as the Japanese models were very easy to find, in recycling centres and op-shops, and cheap to buy, at around $5-$9.

Q: What was your first typewriter and how did you end up with it?

A: My father, who was a master tailor, had a 1948 Underwood Champion in the office of his business at Mawhera Quay, Greymouth, New Zealand. When he moved and expanded to a men’s wear business on Tainui Street in 1957, he bought an Imperial 60 office machine and gave me the Underwood portable. I’d been using it in his office for about a year, so he knew I enjoyed typing with it. I continued to use that Underwood until 1965, when I started out in journalism and bought myself an Olivetti Lettera 32.

Q: If you could only keep just one typewriter out of those that you own, which one would it be and why?

A: Probably a Blickensderfer 5 with a New Zealand Typewriter Company badge. However, I have already bequeathed that typewriter to my grand-daughter Elly, now six. If she decides to claim it while I’m still alive, I would fall back another Blick 5, or the Corona folding portable that was once owned by the Australian writer Miles Franklin. But it would be an extremely difficult choice. There’s the Remington 2 to consider, for example. And there’ll always be somewhere, if only in my heart, for Raymond Koessler’s Simplex.

Q: Out of all the typewriters that have passed through your hands over the years, is there a particular typewriter that you wish you could have back?

A: This is an even harder question. There are just so many I regret selling, hundreds of them. But I couldn’t keep them all, purely for storage reasons. The ones that keep coming back to mind are a large range of 1930s Corona and Royal portables, beautiful machines in gorgeous colours; the full range of Blick portables up to the 9; a bright red Corona folding and a bright red Corona four-bank; gold-plated Royal QDLs; a Royal flatbed and a Royal 10. The list goes on. Of course, I wish I’d kept the two portables I first used, the Underwood and the Olivetti. The latest bout of great regret involves the gold-plated Royal originally owned by Dr Carl Richard Wedler, of St Clair Hospital, Cleveland, Ohio.

Q: Which typewriter took the most time and/or effort for you to obtain?

A: Strange as it may seem to Americans, an Underwood 5. After many years, it began to feel as though I was fated never to own one in really good condition. There were many “close calls”, but I just kept missing out on “the one for me”. But finally last year I acquired one with which I am very satisfied. I don’t think I’ll push my luck any further, but settle for the one I have.

Q: Would you say that you’ve spent more time working on typewriters or typing with them?

A: More time typing, overall, when you consider a start in 1956 and the many millions of words typed between that time and the mid-80s. The home-produced sports magazines and schoolboy efforts at pulp fiction, the daily newspaper stories and the magazine articles, there was an awful lot of typing in all that. Nowadays, however, it’s predominantly working on them.

Q: What single development stands out to you for having the most positive impact on yourself as a typewriter enthusiast/collector?

A: Finding and getting to know people of like mind. It was a fabulous community to be involved in. First meeting Richard Amery in Sydney and having his enthusiasm (mostly for Imperials) rub off on me, then communicating with Richard Polt, Will Davis, Chuck Dilts and Herman Price in the US and Paul Robert in Holland. In 2013 I was able to meet all of these great guys (except Chuck, who wasn’t there), along with Peter Weil, Martin Howard, Alan Seaver, Mike Brown, Martin Rice, the late Dennis Clark and Jim Rauen, and many other wonderful people, at Herman’s annual gathering. Sadly I was unable to attend the next year, but was given the QWERTY Award, definitely the proudest moment in my ‘career’ as a typewriter historian. My 101-typewriter, three-month exhibition at the Canberra Museum and Gallery in 2012, viewed by 12,000 people, was another huge highlight, along with the “I Am Typewriter” Festival in Melbourne in 2011. I was also delighted to be endorsed by Will Davis as his successor as the “Portables Etc” contributor to ETCetera under Richard Polt’s brilliant editorship (2012-18) and to be an inaugural member of the Early Typewriter Collectors’ Association board. I love the way all of my family and friends acknowledge my passion for typewriters, and share in it as far as their interest can take them.

Q: What one piece of advice would you give to those who are just getting started with typewriters?

A: For those interested in typewriter history, I’d say read Mares, Martin, Typewriter Topics, Current, Bliven and Alder et al, but also make sure you do your own digging, your own research and fact checking. For those who just want to know how typewriters work, do as I did – get a Nakajima, take it completely apart, and find out what makes it tick, most especially the escapement wheel! It’s a good education. And for those who only want to type, let it rip – simply XXXX over any mistakes and move on.

Q: What are all of the uses have you’ve found for your typewriters (be it correspondence, writing books, typecasting, etc.) and which one of those would you say has consumed the most of your “typing time”?

A: Definitely newspaper reporting. As a cadet journalist, I’d attend council meetings of an evening, get up at 4am and type six or seven news stories, average length 600 words, and have them on the editor’s desk by 7am. That would be at least three times a week and doesn’t include weekend reporting. I did that for my first 2½ years in newspapers, so there’s 2.3 million words in that period alone. It didn’t ease off much in the next 20 years.

Q: If you could modify a movie, TV show, or a song from the past to include a typewriter in some way, what would your choice be and how would you involve the typewriter?

A: Of course there should be a typewriter in Casablanca, so Rick can type copies of Ugarte’s letters of transit for Ilsa and Laszlo to use. And in Amélie, Amélie Poulain needs a little Japy to write anonymous notes for people to find. Typewriters would complete both movies.

Q: What other things in life do you enjoy besides typewriters?

A: Being with my wife Harriet, spending time with my grandchildren, researching and writing sports history, walking.

Q: What one question do you wish someone would ask you about typewriters or typewriting that you haven’t been asked thus far (and how would you answer that question)?

A: What animals are on the spacebar of the Corona “animal keyboard” portable? Answer: Female elephants and their young, with the matriarch at the head of the line. Some might just answer “elephants”, but that’s simply not me.