Here is my IBM Selectric II Correcting.  I managed over the years to get all the font balls that go with it.  Back in high school I used to be able burn 144-wpm on one of these things.

of my Mom at work.  She worked for the doctor in Monte Rio, Calif. from 1965 to 1974 as his office nurse and secretary.  Part of her duties were to transcribe each days office visits notes from the doctors comments on the Dictaphone.  When she first went to work for the doctor he had an Olympus manual typewriter that she hated.  She convinced the doctor that she could work much more efficiently with an IBM Selectric, so he got her one for the office.  She loved that Selectric. 

I can still see her setting at her desk in her white uniform, Dictaphone headphones on, her ashtray to her right with a constant cigarette burning (this was back when people smoked everywhere) while she rapidly transcribed that days visits.  And BTW, those visits cost $5.00 when she went to work for Dr. Schaap in 1965 and were $6.00 when she she retired on disability in 1974.  He was also the Chief of Staff at Santa Rosa General Hospital and the doctor for the Bohemian Grove visitors during the Summer, his father was the manager of the Grove.

Eddie

Joe, I am so jealous.  That is the exact Selectric, even the color, that my sister had and recently gave away with a full set of font balls.

Since pix of the Smith-Corona Galaxie II portable I'm giving to a friend have already been posted in a different thread, I'm putting up a picture of an Underwood with oversize carriage that is identical to the one that served as our household typewriter from the days before I was even born yet, and well into the 1970s.  I think it was military surplus and had seen a lot of hard use, but everything still worked on it without any maintenance, ever.

is like the one that my aunt gave me for my 10th birthday Ralph, only the carriage on mine was standard size.  It was a very good typewriter and I wish I’d kept it.  

When I was 14 my Mom gave me a new Royal Safari portable for Christmas.   It was coral with off white trim, and this was the typewriter I used all through high school, but it wasn’t as trustworthy as that heavy old Underwood was.  The Safari had a tendency to skip spaces, and in the days before white out it was a big PITA to have to make eraser corrections due to this malfunction.   I think it may have been due to how lightweight the machine was. 

Until we got our first i Mac I always had a typewriter.  Now I would hate to go back to using a typewriter.  My fingers have a tendency to carelessly hit the wrong keys, and it’s a helluva a lot easier to just back space and correct on a PC or i Pad.  Likewise being able to cut and paste is sure a time saver too.

Eddie

Yeah Eddie, I'm way too spoiled by keyboarding now.

I know what you mean about correcting errors.  We had the erasers that were like pencils that you sharpened as needed.  We also had ones that were round pink-ish disks, about 2" in diameter with a hole in the middle for a metal bracket to attach.  The bracket held a brush with green plastic bristles, and the eraser "wheel" could be spun around. 

Neither of those methods worked very well.

Ralph I remember both of these types of typewriter erasers.  As I've mentioned before, my aunt was a high school typing and business teacher (shorthand, bookkeeping, business law ect.).  She always insisted that the carriage be moved all the way to the left or right before making an erasure, this was to keep the eraser rubber particles from falling into the machine and gumming it up.  She also trained me to ALWAYS use two sheets of typing paper, to protect the platen from damage.  The rubber platen is less apt to develop permanent key impressions by using two sheets of paper.

The other PITA about making typing errors and correcting them was when you were using carbon paper or stencil masters.  But especially carbon paper.  There were many instances in an office setting, especially before Xerox machines became common place, when a typist could be required to make up to five carbon copies.  If you were using a manual typewriter you really had to strike those keys hard to get through that many layers of paper and still achieve legible carbon copies.  And if you made an error, you had to erase the error an ALL the carbon copies, not fun!  If you were typing a stencil master, you had to use a razor blade to scrap off the error, then place a small piece of fresh master stencil under the top sheet to retype the correction, very time consuming, and you needed to be careful and neat, so as no to spoil the entire master.

For those too young to remember master stencils.  They were two pieces of paper. The top sheet was coated on the back with a layer of purple semi solid ink like material, with a heavy blank paper as the second sheet.  You typed the copy that you wanted to make a master of, and the ink like substance transferred to the bottom sheet as the typed copy.  Then the completed master with the purple ink type copy was attached to a drum like roller on the mimeograph machine, and there was a solvent like solution that was applied to the master with each turn of the drum, either by manual handle or electric motor and the blank paper fed thru the machine as the purple ink transferred to the blank paper, and voila, you now had several copies of a test, instructions, signs, flyers, you name it.  This was old school copying, before photocopying machines were common place.  

If you carefully stored the master stencil between sheets of wax paper it could be used again, maybe another one or two times, but then it would no longer have enough of the purple master ink left to still create a copy, and you had to repeat the whole process all over again.  I typed more than a few of these masters back in the 60’s.  Most of all our school tests were copied this way when I attended elementary, junior high and high school from 1956 thru 1969.  I’m sure many other members remember those purple ink tests and quiz's. 

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Eddie

Kevin, after seeing all of those typewriters on tables, the deafening sound of 30+ manual machines banging out boring copy from the top-bound 20th Century typing book came back to me like I was still in 9th grade typing class in a condemned 1931 school building.

Now I don't feel so bad about having owned three machines at one point.  With the upcoming bestowal of the Galaxie II, I'll be typewriter-free, at least for a while.

P.S.

I love the smell of fresh Ditto in the morning.  Or any other time of day!

There's a typewriter in that picture?

Yes, and the typewriter is a Remington portable from the 1950s.