Antique Typewriters and Office Collectibles [Paperback]

Darryl Rehr (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1997

Antique Typewriters & Office Collectibles teaches readers to properly identify and evaluate what they have, in terms collectors can understand. In addition to typewriters, the highly collectible ribbon tins are given a special section. The nearly 400 full-color photographs allow you to recognize good machines, learn the differences among models, and distinguish the worthless from the valuable.1997 values. AUTHORBIO: Darryl Rehr is a professional journalist who began collecting typewriters in 1984. Antique Typewriters and Office Collectibles is Rehr's first book-length work in the field, but he has written extensively on the subject for almost two decades. He has been editor of ETCetera, the journal of the Early Typewriter Collectors Association. REVIEW: This identification guide offers a broad view of historical typewriters for anyone who is interested. Specifically, it tries to teach readers how to talk to typewriter collectors about the details of machines which may otherwise seem impossible to describe.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Collector Books (June 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0891457577
• ISBN-13: 978-0891457572
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,332,235 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars In regards to prices, November 21, 2002

By 

Gerald E. Deon (potsdam, ny United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Antique Typewriters and Office Collectibles (Paperback)

I thought this book was great, regarding some complaints about price guide: It is impossible to place a standard market value on typewriters. why? 1) the market is far too small, they are not like baseball cards or comic books
2) there are only a few that are actually considered rare, i cannot tell you how many olivers or underwoods i've seen listed as: "very rare"
prices are are determined by the individual collector. example:
i happen to like the old maroon portables, mainly royals, this means that to me they are worth more than say the more rare royal flat-bed. they are, however far from "rare".
there were something like 600,000 underwood no.5's made.
most of them seem to be around...

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars AS A PRICE GUIDE IT IS POOR, October 12, 1998

By 

Hoby Van Deusen([e-mail] (Watertown, CT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Antique Typewriters and Office Collectibles (Paperback)

Although the book's good points are recited in the other reviews, this book has a major flaw that makes it a disaster for the beginning collector or seller of antique typewriters or ribbon tins. That flaw, that is alluded to by "Chuck", is that the prices given for the better typewriters and ribbon tins by Mr. Rehr, are absurdly low. Lets face it, one of the major reasons people buy a price guide book like this one is to learn about prices! When the pricing of the better quality items bears no relationship to reality in the marketplace such as typewriter auctions, ribbon tin mail/phone auctions, antique advertising auctions or e-Bay auctions the book is doing a great disservice to the public. Many, if not most of the better typewriters & ribbon tins are way underpriced by a factor of 4 or 5 times. For example, the Crandall typewriter is priced by Mr. Rehr at $1,000. Four of these typewriters have sold at various $7,343. This is only one of many examples I could give of low-ball pricing in this book.

Buy the book for the pictures and descriptions of the typewriters but do not rely on it AT ALL as a price guide. Hoby Van Deusen---RIBBON TIN NEW

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a wonderful book if you like typewriters, September 19, 2000

By 

Mayer Goldberg (Beer Sheva, Negev Israel) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Antique Typewriters and Office Collectibles (Paperback)

WHO WOULD WANT THIS BOOK

Anyone that like typewriters, is nostalgic about them, collects them or can't afford to collect them (space-wise or money-wise). This lovely book contains pictures and brief descriptions of old typewriters -- there are many beautiful and crisp photos and some brief descriptions. There's also a small appendix with other office machines (calculators, pencil sharpeners, etc).

WHAT'S NICE ABOUT THIS BOOK

The pictures. Definitely the pictures. I could never tire looking at them.

WHAT'S NOT NICE ABOUT THIS BOOK

It's hard to criticise what is clearly a work of love. Some people mentioned that the prices are off. But I would like to focus on other aspects; Perhaps some of these can be fixed in further editions:

- There's very little treatment of foreign typewriters. This is a pity because different languages posed different mechanical challenges to typewriter manufacturers and it's nice to see how they overcame those difficulties. It's also nice to see other alphabets. :)

- It would have been nice to include a sample of the text produced by each typewriter. Just to see the various typefaces. An index of typefaces/typewriters and their samples could have been nice to have as an appendix, so that people could match samples they have (old letters, notes, etc) with the typewriters that could have possibly been used to write them.

- A bit more prose -- a more thorough description of the mechanical aspects of these machines would have been a nice thing to have.