197X Olivetti DORA #tbc

Status: Typewriter Hunter
Points: 48

I’ve always been a bit fascinated by typewriters - and the skill of being able to touch type - starting with my grandparents probably around 4 or 5 on their Commodore machine which was probably from the 1950s. I got my first typewriter, a second hand Olivetti DORA when I was 12. And I still have it. Whilst my parents thought I was just a bit obsessive, they actually got on board with the whole typing thing when they realised that in my efforts to have a beautifully clean typed page, I was actually paying attention to my spelling. And so, my previously horrendous spelling, actually became quite good. Along the way I went to business college and had to chuckle when the typing teacher was a little put out when the best typist (70+wpm) in her class was a guy! I think she commented along the lines of, “come on girls, how can you let a boy with these big fat fingers beat you all!?” I now have 3 Olivetti’s in my collection - a manual, an electric and an electronic. I recently purchased two more - an Olympia SM9 which is the portable version of the desktop model that we had in typing class in middle school and a Brother which was a typewriter I used when my friend and I did homework at his house. And probably my fave of the all … the big mumma - IBM Selectric III.