Meet Sparky

Filed under: Typecast, typewriters — olivander July 7, 2009 @ 9:04 am

Typewriter: Sparky, a 1941 Remington-Rand Seventeen

8 Comments »

  1. Awesome machine, awesome history. I completely want to do that to one of my three bland-gray manual desktop machines. Mrs. Moon is all, like, “that’ll ruin them for if you want to sell them again! they won’t be worth as much!” and I can’t really come back with “these things aren’t worth anything no matter what you do” because…well, you know. It’s a shakey house of cards I got goin’ on here. We let people believe what they need to believe.

    Comment by duffymoon — July 7, 2009 @ 9:50 am

  2. Dude, the Mrs. Speegle and I had the exact same conversation JUST YESTERDAY. I was ruminating on painting my Selectric “Hunter S. Thompson Red” (not a big fan of the man in general, but I do like his red typewriter). I, too, was shot down in short order.

    Typewriters with histories are most excellent, though. I wonder where mine have been…

    Comment by Mike.Speegle — July 7, 2009 @ 10:25 am

  3. As you know, I have no objection to painting a typewriter if it can’t hurt the value. If it’s a fairly common machine or the surface is in poor condition to start with, painting it can actually increase the resale value.

    Take this, for example: which would you pay more for, this beat-up Monarch, or this snazzy Parnelli Jones tribute?

    Richard Polt has painted a few of his thrift store finds, including this metallic blue-green Quiet-Riter. Now, doesn’t that make it stand out from the crowd?

    Mike, I don’t think you can really destroy the value of a Selectric by painting it. I would be slightly concerned that the extra layer of paint could prevent heat from properly dissipating, but that’s about it.

    Incidentally, for Christmas one year my wife gave me a t-shirt of Johnny Depp as HST, holding the fabled red Selectric. I lurve it.

    Comment by olivander — July 7, 2009 @ 10:35 am

  4. I am familiar with that picture! Every time I see it, though, I wonder how a gangly little fella like Johnny can so casually cradle a beast like the Selectric I.

    The heat I don’t worry about. No matter how well I laundered her, Doris is a bit musty (Don’t mention it in front of her, though. She’s sensitive.), and so I run her with the window open and the fan on.

    Which brings me to the question: say I wanted to give Doris a Sparky-esque paint job. What kind of paint would you recommend?

    Comment by Mike.Speegle — July 7, 2009 @ 1:33 pm

  5. I like Krylon spray paints. Their X-Metals Anodized Red looks especially nice over silver or just a white primer coat.

    Comment by olivander — July 7, 2009 @ 2:14 pm

  6. Sparky’s got a lot of attitude. THERE! I think he winked at me.

    Comment by monda — July 7, 2009 @ 6:38 pm

  7. I *love* Sparky! Typewriters that really lived are the best ones. Thanks for sharing him with us!

    Comment by littleflowerpetals — July 7, 2009 @ 7:50 pm

  8. “Sparky’s got a lot of attitude. THERE! I think he winked at me.”

    Well, you know those enlisted guys… ;-)

    Comment by olivander — July 7, 2009 @ 8:27 pm

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