A 1943 Underwood Noiseless

Isn’t it lovely? I got it today. A friend sent me a link to a kijiji ad where it was listed for $50. $50! I could not email about it fast enough. That was yesterday, I went to see it today and the woman who owned it was so nice. This machine used to belong to her mother, who bought it used in the 50s, but it’s been sitting in a box for about 50 years, untouched. It’s quite dusty, and she thought some of the keys might not work. I told her I wanted to clean it up and fix it, and she said I could have it for free if I did!

With a bit of research I was able to date it to 1943 and also found out that it’s the same model John F. Kennedy used when he was in office. How cool is that?

I’ve been playing around with it and it actually seems like it’s in excellent condition. All the keys work after all and there’s lots of ribbon left. Inexplicably, although it was made in Canada, it has the £ symbol instead of the $ symbol, despite the fact that I’m pretty sure Canada didn’t use the pound sterling as its currency in the 40s. I’m going to give it a good cleaning and since it works better than my Smith-Corona, I may try my hand at writing on it a bit.

I can’t express how thrilled I am to own this machine. My kids love it too – they both want typing lessons now! This one feels like karma brought it to me, since I wasn’t even looking for it, it just fell into my lap.

Today is Tuesday which means it’s time for another round of queries to go out. Last week I sent seven so I’ll aim to do the same tonight. Hopefully I’ll have better results this week than I did the last!

Want to learn more about my typewriters? Check them out here.