National Typewriter Day: Crandall Antique Typewriter

Today is National Typewriter Day! I remember my first typewriter, an old Remington, that was my mother's when she was growing up. My friends had flashier sleeker typewriters, but I pounded away on that old keyboard. Later, much later, I got an Olivetti. Fast, noisy, but so much better.. or so I thought at the time.

I didn't have this Crandall New Model, but it's a gem isn't it? Photo and text from AntiqueTypewriters.com.

The Crandall New Model, "one of the most beautiful typewriters ever made." It has a wonderful curved and ornate Victorian design and is lavishly decorated with hand painted roses, accented with inlaid mother-of-pearl! 

Lucien S. Crandall was born in Broome County New York in 1844. He would become one of the great early typewriter pioneers during the 1860s and 1870s. He patented perhaps ten typewriters with six or so being manufactured. All of his designs are very intriguing and brilliantly imagined machines. 

The Crandall - New Model was his third typewriter to be manufactured but the first to have some success in sales. The Crandall was the first typewriter to print from a single element or "type-sleeve", well before IBM's 'Golf ball' of 1961. The Crandall's type-sleeve is a cylinder, about the size of a finger, which rotates and rises up one or two positions before striking the roller, achieving 84 characters with only 28 keys. The type-sleeve is easy to remove, allowing for change of font style and character size.