Some thoughts about buying typewriters through the Internet:

BUYER BEWARE, The Ames Rubber company has now closed there doors. This was the last company to manufacture replacement rollers and feed rolls for typewriters. What this now means is the as is typewriters sold with flat feed rolls and hard platens or now nothing but door stops, as they for the most part will not accept paper very well if at all. Most E bay typewriter buyers would not expect the machine they or bidding on to be clean, working, adjusted, with a new ribbon and ready to fly, but with hard platens/flat feed rolls you got big time problems. From the originalmrtypewriter.com

With today's growing internet market and the advent of internet auction web sites, an industrious "web surfer" can find many typewriters for sale or auction on the web.

Although it is not our intention to discredit the sellers of these typewriters in any way, we do believe that anyone interested in buying an old typewriter through the internet should exercise care when considering the purchase of such a machine.

There are two very important points to consider when buying a typewriter through the internet.

First, many typewriter sellers do not have the expertise to evaluate a typewriter's condition. A seller not familiar with the mechanics of an old typewriter might advertise it as being in "mint", "near-mint" or "excellent" condition, without even realizing that the machine might have a serious flaw which will prevent it from being used, or else will require expensive repair (if such repair is even possible).

Second, a typewriter must be properly and carefully packaged for shipment, if it is to arrive at its destination in useable condition, and many sellers either do not have the experience or do not understand the importance of proper packing to correctly perform this function.

Over the years, we have received numerous typewriters that were incorrectly packaged by the senders, and in most of these cases, the machines arrived in a condition that rendered them useless. Every year we inspect thousands of "as is" manual typewriters, before sending them on to their various destinations, including locations where they are remanufactured.

Over many years, my experience has shown me that less than 10 percent of these machines are free from varying types of defects, some so serious as to make repair a non cost-effective option, and virtually all of these typewriters require at least, professional cleaning and servicing.

From time to time, we sell typewriters on the Ebay Internet auction site, and as with all the typewriters that we advertise for sale, you can be certain that every machine that you see on Ebay with our ID (MrTypewriter) as the seller, has been carefully and professionally serviced, cleaned and inspected, and will be professionally packaged for shipment.