Very sad to report that Jerry Wallace, my typewriter maintenance and repairman passed away last year. This news is new to me since I lost contact with him when he retired and moved to Northern California. What a loss to the typewriter community. I used to take my typewriters to Jerry to fix and polish up at his Salinas home repair shop.

We recommend people come to our shop and type. We charge $5 an hour or you can look into our rental programs. We have a lot of people come in just to hang out and type. No plans on actually owning one, and that's fine with us. Come in, play, leave without the 10-30 pounds of metal with you lol. We also sell and service machine. Prices vary some. But all our machine have a 60 day guarantee from date of purchase. We do ship machines as well if you find something on our website that you like. Assuming you aren't near the Dayton Ohio area.

Reese Electronics on Westwood Blvd in Los Angeles. Helmut was a mechanical engineer for Olivetti.

Ken Alexander worked for 20 years at California Typewriter as the shop’s principal technician on manual typewriters. But these days he’s working three days a week at Berkeley Typewriter, “though that number will likely go up,” he said.

Tom Furrier, who owns the Cambridge Typewriter Company in Massachusetts, has sold several typewriters to Mr. Cidoni and said that high school and college students have become a staple of his business.

Joe Banuelos, its third owner, has run the shop for nearly twenty years. Joe’s brother, Jesse Banuelos, who works as a typewriter technician at the store

Herbert Permillion, who runs California Typewriter Company on San Pablo Avenue, said he was also at a loss to explain the trend.  “I’m almost in awe to some extent, but then I can sort of understand that some people tend to reach back and some people want things a little simpler.”

California Typewriter Company was opened as California Typewriter on Shattuck Avenue by  Glenn Tuttle in 1949. Permillion bought the shop in 1981 from its second owner, Joseph Mundy, at its second location on University and moved it to its current location on San Pablo in 1986.

Jim Riegert, now in his 70s, remembers what it used to be like. "Back then, typewriters were pretty big. Typewriters and adding machines," he says, referring to desktop calculators. "It got really difficult in the typewriter business about 25 years ago," he says. "The internet was coming on and killing us, too." He runs Typewriters.com and, despite a decline in sales in recent decades, he still shifts four or five electric IBM typewriters every week.

Paul Lundy, who runs Bremerton Office Machine Company, a typewriter repair business in Seattle.

another customer clutching an old typewriter will walk into Mike Marr's shop in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

Ole Kehlet of Kehlet Typewriter in Sacramento

His low rate, $68.50 regardless of the problem, allows Smitty to enjoy the process of fixing a typewriter for its merit rather than its profit. As he simply states, "I'm doing this to stay alive."

Bryan Kravitz, who specialized in IBM Selectric repairs. Rhoda wanted to learn, too. Kravitz was happy to teach him."I just put my head down, and learned how to do it," Rhoda said, and he partnered with Kravitz to open Philly Typewriter in 2017.

Bill Rhoda, co-owner and lead mechanic at Philly Typewriter.

If you've been dreaming of plunging into this profession, consider the success of Paul Lundy, who took over Bremerton Office Machine Company from nonagenarian Bob Montgomery; or Antony Valoppi, creator of Portland's Type Space, which combines a traditional typewriter shop with a cultural center; or Trevor Brumfield, a young man in his late twenties who has quickly built Dayton's TB Writers Plus into a busy enterprise.

Gerren Balch

Vale Typewriter from Ray Vale, who had helmed the stout brick building since it was constructed in 1957.

Typewriter ChicagoHours by appointment1525 Ogden, Unit L, Downers Grove, 630-561-5853typewriterchicago.com/

Edmonton’s YEG Typewriters, run by 28-year-old Keith Ferrer, and Tampa Typewriter Co., a repair service run by 19-year-old Jack Armstrong.

delivery-dan 2 points3 points4 points 6 hours ago (1 child)Mineral spirits with just a touch of transmission fluid. Used to own typewriter repair shop large parts washer with mineral spirits with transfluid strip off case and submerged in fluid ti clean then air blower to dry and reassemble. Wd 40 marvel mystery oil will only be temp fit and become worse over time.

I started a typewriter repair business in my garage, and I got my first customer!

Don't feel bad. Your not the only one. This misconception has been going on for years simply because no typewriter repairman has stood up and said " Now wait a minute! " The collectors have done all the talking and publishing while the typewriter man isn't heard. Consequently, it's the big typewriter collectors that are heard. They never talk about how many times they had to reclean a machine. They often have several and may only use 1 or 2. Also there isn't that many of us real typewriter repairman left to do the talking.