The novelty of vintage machines

Bob Diven loves typewriters.

And he’s betting you do, too.

Diven, who is an artist of various media, is holding a vintage manual typewriter sale during the Farmer and Craft Market from 9:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. on September 20 in front of Coas Books, 317 N. Main St. Diven said he and his partner, Steve Luddington, have held typewriter sales before and that people, especially kids, are riveted by the machines.

He said the appeal to young people is the novelty because they’ve grown up in a world of devices.

“The typewriter is a machine. It’s exotic to them,” he said. “It’s just an unusual thing they haven’t come across.”

He said he has to teach young people how to use a typewriter, that it requires pulling a lever to make it return to the left side, that it functions using keystrokes and ribbons. He said part of the fascination is the kinetic feedback of using a machine.

“It requires muscle, not just a tap,” he said.

He said that for older generations, the typewriter invokes nostalgia.

Diven said he finds typewriters in thrift stores and antique shops. He said sometimes people just give him an old typewriter. He said he just purchased some from a museum and he’s bought some online.

He said he made a trip to the Midwest and brought back 10.

“You just never know. Sometimes people call us, offer us one or sell it to us cheap. We stop at yard sales. We’ve got so many, we’re not actively looking,” he said.

Diven said the typewriters he focuses on are manuals, mostly portable, from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

“Those were really good eras,” he said.

He said the oldest one in his possession dates back to 1905 but it is not fully working.

Diven said he brings out a 1925 Underwood to his farmer’s market booth so people can have the experience of typing on it.

Diven said that when he was growing up, the IBM Selectric, which had a ball that could change fonts, was the “ultimate electic typewriter.”

“It was such an advance,” he said. “Those were the typewriters the personal computer replaced.”

But even then, college students often carried a portable Smith Corona typewriter, Diven said.

Diven also offers typewriter repair. Because typewriter parts are no longer made, he sometimes has to cannibalize an old machine that is not working or he has to get creative.

He said he has had to fabricate a new spring, for instance. He also can swap out parts with other typewriter repair shops, which still exist in a few places.

Typewriters also bring out people’s creativity. Diven said his partner, Luddington, will busk poems during the sale on a typewriter.

“We had a student who sat for an hour and wrote his girlfriend a note on a typewriter,” Diven said.