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Home » Olivetti » Valentine S » 1969 #5680919
1969 Olivetti Valentine S Serial # 5680919 1969 Olivetti Valentine S typewriter, Serial # 5680919 Christopher Bailey's 1969 Olivetti Valentine S typewriter. 2023-04-05 From the Virtual Typewriter Collection of Christopher Bailey: 1969 Olivetti Valentine S Serial # 5680919 In very good shape. The type is one of those un-American pitches, about 11½ characters per inch. (I look in vain for the ½ key on my computer keyboard. Where did it go?)

I saw this in a thrift store for $500 and thought it was awfully pricey. Certainly more than I was going to pay.

Then I noticed the decimal point. I had misread the price by a factor of 100.

So here is the five-buck Valentine—although, to be fair, with tax it was $5.35.

1969 Olivetti Valentine S #5680919

Status: My Collection
Hunter: Christopher Bailey (cbaile19)
Created: 04-05-2023 at 01:47PM
Last Edit: 04-05-2023 at 01:57PM


Description:

In very good shape. The type is one of those un-American pitches, about 11½ characters per inch. (I look in vain for the ½ key on my computer keyboard. Where did it go?)

I saw this in a thrift store for $500 and thought it was awfully pricey. Certainly more than I was going to pay.

Then I noticed the decimal point. I had misread the price by a factor of 100.

So here is the five-buck Valentine—although, to be fair, with tax it was $5.35.

Typeface Specimen:

Photos:

The keyboard.
The keyboard.


Setting the lever between 0 and 1 gives you half-line spacing, which is probably useful for certain esoteric kinds of poets.
Setting the lever between 0 and 1 gives you half-line spacing, which is probably useful for certain esoteric kinds of poets.

The serial number is on the metal chassis below the right end of the carriage.
The serial number is on the metal chassis below the right end of the carriage.


In its plastic sleeve.
In its plastic sleeve.

Hunter: Christopher Bailey (cbaile19)

Christopher Bailey's Typewriter Galleries [ My Collection ] [ My Sightings ]

Status: Typewriter Hunter
Points: 844

I’m a writer who often writes with a typewriter to get away from the computer for a while. I think I became a typewriter collector when I bought my typewriters some industrial-grade wheeled steel shelving from a restaurant supply house. Before that I was just an accumulator, but now I’ve spent more on shelves than on all the typewriters put together. (They were all cheap.)

I have steel pens, too, which I also write with regularly. Both collections started at the same moment in 1990, at the liquidation of the head offices of the old G. C. Murphy five-and-dime chain, where I bought a Woodstock typewriter, two gross of Esterbrook Jackson Stub pens, and three bottles of Carter’s green ink.



RESEARCH NOTE: When researching the Olivetti Valentine S on a computer with lots of screen real estate, you may find that launching the Olivetti Serial Number page and the Olivetti Valentine S By Model/Year/Serial page in new browser windows can give you interesting perspectives on changes throughout the model series.