Well, as this is my first post as a summer student, I think I'll share some of my impressions of the museum collection. First of all, I am astonished by the number of typewriters we have in storage in the outbuildings. I added a beautiful 1940s Royal KMM model to the inventory yesterday, only to find that we have about 14 different models and brands in all. For those of you who haven't handled old typewriters, they are extremely lovely, but also very very heavy. This one was made of black iron, and had weathered quite a bit. The keys are made of glass, which has led to some collectors buying them solely for the keys, for use in jewelry-making or other crafts.
Typewriters are still extremely popular antiques both to use and display. There is a romance to them, possibly because of their presence in old movies and their association with famous writers such as Hemingway. I am a typewriter fan and wouldn't mind having one gracing my room myself, but I have to wonder how often our exhibits use them. Perhaps in future we should have a feature on communications technology to add to the telephone building. They are very cool artifacts, but they do take up space.
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