Chad Comello

Advice for selling a typewriter

Here’s my advice for selling a typewriter: Don’t Google it before selling. Don’t see what it’s going for on eBay or Etsy. Especially if it’s a functional model of a popular and photogenic brand you’re just using for decoration and know nothing about. Just sell it to me at a ridiculously low price.

That is my advice for selling a typewriter.

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OK, tongue-in-cheek aside—though by all means take it seriously—I was inspired to write this after my sister scouted an Olivetti Lettera 22 on Facebook Marketplace for $10. Surely it’s a junker, I thought. Nope. The sellers were moving and needed to clear out, stat, money be damned. She got it for $5.

Most people aren’t appraisers and can’t be expected to know the value of antiques. I’m sure I have donated or tossed things over the years I could have sold for a pretty penny. I’m just surprised when something as pretty and sleek as a blue Olivetti changes hands for nothing.

But hey, one man’s trash…

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One response to “Advice for selling a typewriter”

  1. T. Munk
    T. Munk

    Personally, I blame the low prices on my initiation into typewriter obsession. The sight of a perfectly functional and stunningly beautiful 1948 Royal QDL sitting in a thrift store with a $4.95 price tag on it in 1994 was too mind-blowing for me to resist. Then, once I was aware that it was commonplace, that led to a dozen more at similar price points. It was 2010 before I actually learned anything about their history, but I had a lot of happy years typing on wonderfully cheap machines in blissful ignorance of what I actually had in my collection.

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