A gray, rainy Saturday in late November . . . a small “creative space” with paintings on its walls and a plate-glass window looking out onto the main street of Bridgewater, Pennsylvania . . . a room filled with typewriters and typewriter enthusiasts, some clacking away on the machines, some browsing, some just talking shop: this was the scene on Saturday, November 19, when we had a very successful type-in/typewriter sale/beer swap.

Type-in at Sweet As Studios, Bridgewater, PA, November 19, 2016

Those who love and use typewriters today, sometimes called typospherians, hold type-ins all around the country. Many, many thanks to Lenny at Sweet As Studios for offering us the venue for this one.

Conversations, writing, and maintenance

Some brought their own typewriters and came to type on particular projects:

Linda and Rachel, writing at the type-in — note the dictionary (happy sigh!) — typewriters don’t have automatic spell-checkers.

Val, the real organizer of the event, took the opportunity to “typecast” — that is, he typed a blog entry, which he later photographed and uploaded onto his blog.

Typecasting

I really liked the cable spools turned on their sides for rustic tables. We had about twenty of our typewriters for sale. Val and I each sold a couple machines. People arrived throughout the afternoon.

Typewriters galore

Val brought along his Crosley turntable, so we had event-appropriate music from vinyl throughout the afternoon: John Denver, Duke Ellington, Simon and Garfunkel, and many others . . . including an LP designed to teach touch typing: a soothing voice chanted, “A-S-D-F, space, A-S-D-F, space . . .”

Lots of lovely machines

See that beautiful old Royal in the foreground of the picture above? A highlight of the day for me was when Lynn brought that in — she’d had it in storage for years, and it was in great working order except that the ribbon was dried out. I had brought along my tools and a reel of bulk ribbon, so I offered to install a new ribbon for her. Lynn was delighted!

Me, having fun (photo by Lynn Britton Radford)

I’m glad I brought the ribbon along!

Changing the ribbon

Great time! I look forward to the next type-in.

Fold-over Corona 3 on the right