1964 Sears Celebrity #6ASB-114864

Status: My Collection
Hunter: Nadia Pinto (WantonSecretary)
Created: 08-20-2024 at 08:09AM
Last Edit: 08-20-2024 at 12:22PM

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Description:

1964 Sears Celebrity (Smith Corona-made), Numode/"Sears Futura" typeface, 10 cpi.
Serial #: 6ASB-114854

A relatively recent addition sourced from eBay for under $100, and yet easily a desert island machine for me. Just as its exterior doesn't need a lot of flash to be poetically beautiful, I don't need a lot of words to describe its beauty. How can so many simple details make a machine this hypnotic, at least to me? The red and blue stripes against the subtle grey bring it all together, but the sharp angles on the ribbon cover along with the curves of the body are no afterthought, either. It reminds me of an elegant yet functional sailboat.

And the typeface! I've fallen hard for the Sears typefaces. They may not have had a buffet of options, but what they did offer was intriguing. I think the only one I'm missing now is the Elite Gothic from their early 60s machines. I just had to go with a red and blue ribbon.

I can't complain much about the condition it arrived to me in considering that USPS almost lost it. There are a few scuffs and areas needing deeper cleaning, but all it really had was internal dust buildup. There is an occasional skip after the letter "a" that I need to address, but otherwise a happy typer.

Sure, not the most exotic or prestigious of machines, but I feel lucky to have it since apparently, they were only available in 1964. It currently lives at my office so the typeface can be shared with the world (or at least with my coworkers and fax recipients),

Typeface Specimen:

Photos:

Hunter: Nadia Pinto (WantonSecretary)

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Status: Typewriter Hunter
Points: 60

Growing up, one of the joys of yearly visits with my family in Rome plunking the keys of my dear Nonno Italo's mid-century typewriter. Those days are long gone, but my fondness for typewriters and all things nostalgia was deeply instilled in my distant Italian life. And once I got on the typewriter train, I REALLY took off and now I've just stopped counting.

My life has had a lot of change and upheaval in recent years, and nearly all of my machines are in storage awaiting the day when I can finally live in my own space and bring them out again to clean, tinker with, and fix up. I don't think one needs a typewriter to write the next great American novel - they make shopping lists and office work nobler, and something to look forward to.

Still, I think I'm always searching for my nonno's typewriter. I don't know what it was, and I'll probably never lay my hands on it again. But the path through my growing typewriter collection is worthwhile.