Our Story

I believe that typewriters can change the world.

A typewriter really is the ultimate writing tool. Or perhaps I was simply born in the wrong century.

I started using a typewriter in 2003, after being reared on digital media. I was attending SFAI for an MFA in painting when the first typewriter came to my studio apartment. It was a Smith Corona Silent from the 40’s. Soon after, an Olympia SM9 followed.

I almost immediately fell in love. I say ‘almost’ because at first I had that nagging sensation that I was taking another ludicrous detour in life, by willingly choosing the path of most resistance. Writing was hard enough already… why render it nearly impossible!? I was instantly spellbound by the letters hammering my thoughts onto the paper in the same millisecond that I tapped the key. But after a page or so; a page riddled with errors, my fingers were sore. After twenty pages, my forearms were sore. Essentially, I had to unlearn computer typing mechanics.

And while this love affair with manual typewriters blossomed quickly, it took me a few years to gravitate to the right machines, and to learn to type, really type, and use the rhythm of the keys as a creative tool. Once I found that, I felt unstoppable. Anyway, in those rare moments when the stubborn muse didn’t reject my hand as it beckoned her to dance.

I have no doubt that the typewriter is the ultimate writing machine. The computer is the ultimate research machine. With its litany of available distractions, one could argue that the quality of writing has actually declined in the digital age, alongside the quality of human connection. I can’t tell you how often I’ve sent a typewritten letter to a swooning recipient; thrown in a pressed flower or an ink sketch.

I’m entrepreneurial by nature. I sold my first drawing when I was 7. I’ve written various books on these beloved machines, some of which appear on Amazon, and I operate a few other businesses, including Eden Compost Solutions and Flow Healing Arts.

Classic Typewriter is mainly a labor of love; a way to spread my passion for these addictive contraptions.

I’m also a revolutionary at heart, and I must confess, when I hear the clack, I feel the call. There is something quintessentially radical in using a typewriter. I don’t know exactly what it is, but returning to technologies designed to last a lifetime in the midst of a throwaway society constitutes a revolutionary act. Witnessing letters form on the page instantly after years of ethereal, digital acts is still breathtaking.

I love to introduce these forgotten technologies to writers and future-writers (children).

The Art of Vintage

For many storytellers, there was a golden era of writing. Our favorite novelists pounded out their masterpieces on masterpieces of design and engineering; typewriters. Though they’ve fallen by the wayside, it wasn’t entirely because a better writing tool was invented, but simply due to the evolution of technology.

Many of these machines, even those built 50 or one hundred years, old are still in use throughout the world; still going strong. They’re used in courtrooms, classrooms, art studios, wilderness retreats, offices, etc.

Some of them survived literal wars, while soldiers cranked out words from the front. Other survived the war with the demon, procrastination. They’ve often survived epic journeys across deserts and oceans.

I've curated history's best typewriters; and by best I mean most useable, most beautiful, and most reliable.

My focus is typewriters for writers. Typewriters also make a choice piece of decor, if that’s your path. I love to look at them, it’s true. But the reason I love to look at them is because of what they are capable of: WRITING.

A typewriter may not instantly make you a better writer. It will help you refine your craft over time. Not only the craft of writing, but the process of thinking.

When I gaze at the 1937 Smith Corona Sterling on my bookshelf, I’m inspired. I crave the clack of the thing, hammering out words across a freshly pressed sheet of paper. I write until the writing is done, then I gather the manuscript up in a bundle, and read it later.

I've learned to think more logically, and to express an argument more succinctly. I've published some of my poetry on instagram, in photographic form, still hanging out of the machine.

Is it any accident that most of the best literature of the 20th century was written on a typewriter? Often one of the very same models I offer here. Thomas Pynchon, arguably one of the best novelists alive, Cormac Mcarthy, and Woody Allen, Quentin Tarantino, and many others still compose or draft exclusively on typewriters.

My one caveat would be this: find a machine, and use it. I know I probably shouldn’t tell you this, as a typewriter dealer, but carrying consumerism into the typewriter world is ok, except you can take any typewriter on this site, and write your new world into being with it. That’s a guarantee. Other facts and features are just the incidentals.

Thank you for being here, among like minds. If you love words, you're in the right place.

Welcome to the written rapture.

Write on,

Steven Budden Jr. | Chapel Hill, NC - formerly of Northern California redwoods.

-Recoverer of Rare Antiquities / Writer / Typewriter Revolutionizer