Ton, You Are Awesome!

The Tower in its tawny glory.

Already in use! You go, student!

Wanted!

The affinity I have for the Royal HH borders on lunacy. Thankfully, I only have the one, but given the option I would take another in one of the other 5 colors out there...

Here are some examples I found on the web (with as much attribution as I could gather):

A green HH as presented on the blog Typewriter Hoarding.

Pink on meedily's flickr account.

I have not found the blue, the yellow, or the charcoal/grey. If you know of a picture, let me know. If you have such a colored HH I would be really interested in getting one. Send me a letter, and we'll talk.

N.B. As far as I can tell, it looks like the colors were painted with some sort of sheen finish. The brown HH which is ubiquitous is always in a wrinkle finish. There is so little about these machines out there.

FP In The Library

This is the FP in the school's library. When it was in my possession -- being more willing to beg forgiveness than ask permission -- I went ahead an painted it. The color was not exactly like the historic FP green, but gave an overall impression of the same color. In reality, the gray was chipped and scrapped from years of use in public education. This is one of the few public typewriters I have been able to get set up around our campus.

Krylon Celery Green. It's much lighter than the old FP green.

This FP has a a darker tint and earmuffs. 
The earmuffs are a carbon ribbon kit. 
Photo via Machines of Loving Grace

Blue FP from a Life magazine advertisement.

I have started to see an interesting shift in the mindset of my students. The typewriters are no longer objects of curiosity or antiquated tools, they are starting to become part of the fabric of their educational experience. It's an interesting and nuanced change. I am proud to have some hand in making that happen.

Typewriter Dramatics

Imagine having some guests over to your house. As the conversation evolves someone, perhaps that guy from your office who keeps trying to show you various "apps" on his iPhone, turns a glancing eye to your den.

"What's that?" says Chad (because they are all named Chad) pointing to the desk.

You respond, "That? It's something very special. I keep it covered to protect it."

"Does it have apps?"

"No."

You stand up and your guests follow you to the den. Snapping on the lamp, you take the cover and with a dramatic flourish you remove it to reveal a pristine Royal Quiet De Luxe.

The silence is cut by Chad (because he's just so annoying), "So, no apps?"

***

Paul emailed me a few days ago to let me know that he tried making one of the typewriter covers that I wrote about in a very Typewriter Cover-themed blog post. Here it is. In addition to the wonderful email, Paul sent a picture of his handiwork.

Quite nice quilted cozy.

Needless to say, I am overjoyed that the "pattern" proved to be a success. Good work Paul!

3rd Phoenix Type-In

Showing Off

I think I might have mentioned it a while ago, but Mrs. Magic Margin, Baby Magic Margin, and I moved to a new house. It's much bigger than our old house and the perfect place for a growing...typewriter collection! Mrs. Magic Margin was adamant that I have a place (out of the way) that I can display a respectable number of typewriters. After some thinking, we bought my favorite bookshelf from IKEA; Expedit and assembled it in what we call "The Typewriter Room."Each box in the bookcase is just barely large enough to hold a standard Royal-size portable typewriter. Pretty much every example from my collection fits. The only exception is the Facit. I have it set on top of the bookshelf along with a Royal Model O to give the top a visual balance. See for yourself in the photo-set below and please excuse me for showing off.

The Complete Adney Collection

U.S. Navy Aristocrat

This little three needs some polishing.

A new addition to my collection.
The platen is frightfully hard.

The trusty Model 7 gets a high spot.

My first typewriter.

Another shiny one.

The tawny twins.

An Artist's Brush

An Oldie from the Archive

Please enjoy this graphic from last year's Valentine's Day.

Peter, You Rock!

I also snapped a few pictures from my third hour class. It was a very type-tastic day!

Representative Commendation

I came to school to find this letter from Arizona State Representative Debbie McCune Davis. I must be sure to type a thank you note.

 

Welcome to Magic Margin

Some of you, no doubt, are visiting for the first time. Welcome. Typewiters are wonderful machines and I love to share them. So, please look around. If you click on the links to the side you'll find a smattering of our classroom collection, links to other typewriter sites, and an archive of posts for this blog. You'll find some serious stuff, some fun stuff, some interesting stuff, and some absolutely silly stuff.

The original concept behind The Classroom Typewriter Project was to have students write without distraction. Computers have become distracting devices the divert our attention from quiet inspiration and real reflection. The typewriter is still the perfect machine for getting ideas neatly presented on paper. Moreover, the typewriter requires the author to be aware of GUMS (grammar, usage, mechanics, and spelling) because a typewriter has a way of making your literary missteps very public.

To bring you up to speed on what has happened I have aggregated some of the older posts from this blog. These will be helpful in understanding the goals and what I wanted to do.

1. The original proposal sent to the nascent typosphere: http://magicmargin.blogspot.com/2010/08/classroom-typewriter-project.html

2. The Hypothesis: http://magicmargin.blogspot.com/2010/08/hypothesis.html

3. The Process: http://magicmargin.blogspot.com/2010/08/process.html

4. Some results: http://magicmargin.blogspot.com/2010/09/results-of-weekly-typewriter-inventory.html
and http://magicmargin.blogspot.com/2010/09/weekly-typewriter-inventory-analysis.html andhttp://magicmargin.blogspot.com/2010/10/analysis-and-monks.html andhttp://magicmargin.blogspot.com/2010/12/young-truth.html

The Stradivarius of Typewriters

 

A Blog Post Where My Literary Celebrity Grows, A Call for Typecasts is Made, and A Silver Surfer is Announced

A Real 10 Out of 10

An Exciting Typecast

Tomorrow is a Big Day

I have been polishing my typewriter collection in preparation for a small visit from Bill Geist from CBS News Sunday Morning. He will be visiting my personal collection on Monday afternoon. On Tuesday he will be visiting my classroom to see what we do with the typewriters and how the students are reacting to the CTP.

Am I a little nervous? Absolutely! This is a pretty big deal. Hopefully everything goes well.

A Move, The Horror, Whispers, and Back To Normal

Happy Holiday!

Magic Margin is now Taking Applications

The Typegrant Application is available right now! Just click on the Typegrant button on the right and you will be transported to a PDF you can print off, fill in, and send to:

Magic Margin Typegrants

c/o Ryan Adney

Alhambra High School

3839 West Camelback Road

Phoenix, AZ 85019

This grant is open to all high school students currently enrolled in a comprehensive high school in the continental United States. There are four typewriters available, two of which are reserved for Arizona applicants.

Just A Couple of Things

This post is more of an update on several parallel activities happening at Magic Margin rather than new content. It has been a rather busy build-up to the holiday season. 

I am putting the finishing touches on the Typegrant application form. If I can get a few minutes on the computer, I'll post it tonight. As it stands the application is about two pages long. It's not a remarkably difficult application process and should only take a few minutes to fill out. I don't want to make the entire thing unduly difficult.

The first Typegrant application deadline is scheduled for March 2nd, 2012. The grants are open to any high school student currently enrolled in a four-year high school and on-track to graduation. 

There are four typewriters that I am in the process of getting cleaned up and ready to give away. I have set aside a Smith-Corona Sterling, an SCM Classic 12, a '50s Royal QDL, and the Hermes 2000 for Typegrant awardees. I think that this small collection represents a nice cross-section of typewriters. 

I still want to post something using the Facit's script typeface. It's really quite nice and it might be fun to do a comparison/contrast with the Smith-Corona's  script typeface. This is the same identical model that Ted Munk has called the Iron Lady; no doubt due to the immense weight.

Well, do keep an eye out for the application and some fun stuff!

A Salvo Into the Fortress of Hipsterdom

UPDATE: As you can see I have completely sold out of typewriters. The experiment proves that, with a reasonable price, a nice typewriter sells itself on Etsy. I have a few more that I plan on offering, but I want to get these other ones sipped out before I do. It's been a crazy few days. My prices were a little on the high side and they still sold. However, my prices are more than 1/2 of the nearest competitor. Now I have more than enough money for Typegrant ribbons.

Maybe it's my imagination, but Etsy has been largely ignored by the Typosphere. The boutique prices  seem to be the major detraction. However, I think that an over-priced market is a great place to introduce a lower-priced alternative. That's why I went ahead and set up an Etsy Shoppe (old-timey spelling intentional). I've priced the three typewriters lower than any comparable typewriter on the site. That still makes them much more expensive that I would have normally spent in thrift stores and the like. We'll see if anyone in interested in buying a $65 Hermes 3000 when there are identical $135 machines on the site. At the very least, I imagine that some of the shops will consider lowering their prices a bit.

Magic Margin: ruining boutique pricing since December 10th.

Here's the link to my shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/tryanpa?ref=si_shop

Facit-nating Turn of Events

Last night I got another email message from Eric saying that he found 9 more typewriters in the back of the storage unit. I was floored. My mind started imagining fantastic impossibilities. Silver Sterlings. Gold-plated Royals. Lamberts. Odells. Sheer madness.

When Eric dropped of the machines I was a little more realistic, but still excited to find a few machines I have never had the chance to see in person. The one that caught my eye was this little Facit TP1.

Having never used one, I was in for a suprise. It's an absolutely lovely little machine. All metal and very rugged. The looks are modern and understated.

I love the detail of the name across the back. Robert has gone into more detail than I could every attempt (http://oztypewriter.blogspot.com/2011/10/facit-tp1-portable-prince-of.html), but there was one surprise lurking in this little Swede. See if you can guess it. 

So, while you try to solve the mystery, I am going to find a place to put all these typewriters. Enjoy these other pictures.