130 Matching Annotations
  1. Oct 2025
  2. Sep 2025
    1. reply to u/BudgetSprinkles3689 at https://www.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1nkbw85/serial_number_location/

      What is the purpose of a serial number? What does it do for you? There are serial numbers on things all around you; do you know where all of those are? The VIN number on your vehicle maybe?

      People now are only using them to approximate manufacturing dates for fun, but they were generally only used by the factory or repair people to identify specific machines and/or tie issues after manufacture back to production line problems. Do they need to be easily accessed or visible for these purposes? The people who really need them generally know exactly where they are and how to find them.

      Sometimes they're used to create inventories for owners or in cases of theft, but these generally aren't common uses that need high visibility. Because they can be removed or defaced, should they be put in easily findable and accessible places?

      Generally they're stamped in at the factory during production on integral parts of the machine during assembly. As a result, they can often be hidden or covered up by parts (especially exterior panels and body styling) added later. If it's on an exterior, easy-to-remove part, what good is it?

      If it helps, here's a diagram of some common locations:

      img

  3. Aug 2025
    1. Reply to Joe Van Cleave at https://typewriterdatabase.com/show.21270.typewriter

      It's probably a subtle difference, but is this machine provide the standard 6 lines per vertical inch or due to the taller ascenders/descenders is it a 4 lines per vertical inch machine?

      If you need a "name" for this machine, I might suggest "Satchmo". In doing some research on Louis Armstrong's 5 series Smith Corona, I'm pretty sure his 5 series also had this same vertical script. None of the features on any of the photos I could find of his machine are subtle enough to distinguish which particular model of Smith-Corona he was using. If we find a good direct photo of the machine itself, I'm sure I could puzzle out which version he used. By 1955 he had at least one machine with a script face (see: https://www.louisarmstronghouse.org/virtual-exhibits/my-fifty-fifth-birthday-celebration-happy-birthday-louis-armstrong/). It doesn't appear to be Smith-Corona's common Script (Artistic) No. 75 , but more like Script No. 46. Based on a version of this photo (https://www.usatoday.com/gcdn/presto/2019/07/15/USAT/d815dddc-c0b8-4c54-b9b5-719886d4a0cc-02_Armstrong_Louis_16.jpg?width=1292&height=1320&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp) it would seem that it's the Smith-Corona that was the script machine (as opposed to his earlier Remington).

      According to Ted Munk's post on the S-C Vertical script: "Smith Corona is offering the [vertical] typeface as 'Script No. 46', 10 Pitch by 1954."

      Joe's video of his 1952 Smith-Corona this with the same vertical script https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH6mwmoN_LI

      See also: https://www.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1mo4wbg/what_typewriter/

      Somewhat interesting that Louis Armstrong played cornet, wrote on a Smith-Corona, and lived in the Corona neighborhood of Queens, NY.

  4. Jul 2025
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  11. Jun 2024
    1. https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/nabokov.jpeg via https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/typers.html

      This photo, similar to others in the Carl Mydans series for LIFE Magazine is surely from his September 1958 photo series, though I couldn't find an original from the LIFE archive.

      Nabokov, reading off of index cards in his zettelkasten, dictates to his wife Vera who is typing on what appears to be a 1949 or 1950 Henry Dreyfuss Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter.

      Notice metal strip on the back of the typewriter with small rectangular blocks. This is the Royal's tabulator set up which distinguishes the Quiet De Luxe model from the Arrow model.

      The body styling of this typewriter changed in 1950 from Dreyfuss' original 1948 design. Because it's light gray it has to be from '49 or '50 as the '48 original was a black body with dark gray highlights and didn't have chrome across the front as this one does in an alternate angle.

  12. May 2024
    1. Nabokov’s working notecards for “Lolita.”

      Nabokov used index cards for his research and writing. In one index card for research on Lolita, he creates a "weight-heigh-age table for girls of school age" to be able to specify Lolita's measurements. He also researched the Colt catalog of 1940 to get gun specifications to make those small points realistic in his writing.

      syndication link

  13. Apr 2024
    1. Rolodex Item #67380 https://www.ebay.com/itm/166733559184

      You have to appreciate the way that this zettelkasten is designed to be decorative and include personal family photos almost as a representation of what it directly contains.

      Caption: A small rolodex file in grey and black plastic with a picture frame on the front with space for a small photo, in this case either a picture of a young child or a family dog

  14. Mar 2024
  15. Feb 2024
  16. Dec 2023
    1. Kasparyan's zettelkasten consists of 24 wooden boxes and at least two plastic trays of cards. The trays are numbered and the highest numbered tray has the number 34 on it.

      In the picture are two plastic trays, but it's not obvious how big they are or how many cards they may contain.

      Approximating that these would contain about 1,200 cards each, the collection is likely between 28,800 and 40,800 cards.

      https://t.co/5nGvHBm5Vo<br>Today I made a video about Henrik Kasparian's chess puzzle database which includes 30 thousand chess puzzles! In the precomputer era Kasparian used index cards to select everything in one place, and it took him decades to complete!#chess #chesspuzzle pic.twitter.com/V1H2PMKfjN

      — Suren (@surenaghabek) August 3, 2020
      <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
  17. Nov 2023
    1. A notice sent to recipients of the Schriftenkartei: “With the 5th delivery you receive today, you have index cards with 527 typefaces. The type index is now complete for the time being. From now on, you will only receive the corresponding type sample index cards from the office of your responsible regional association for the newly created typefaces that are included in the casting program of the German type foundries.” In the end there were a total of 638 typeface cards, adding up to about 200 families.

      The initial version of the Schriftenkartei had 527 typefaces (and thus cards), but with the release of subsequent typefaces it eventually grew to 638 typeface cards accounting for up to about 200 families.

      -via postcard from the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der gra­phischen Verbände des deutschen Bundesgebietes e.V., Bundesverband Buchdruck (Working Group of the German Graphic Associations, Federal Book-Printing Division)

  18. Oct 2023
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  21. Jul 2023
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  28. Oct 2022
    1. http://www.greyroom.org/issues/60/20/the-dialectic-of-the-university-his-masters-voice/

      “The Indexers pose with the file of Great Ideas. At sides stand editors [Mortimer] Adler (left) and [William] Gorman (right). Each file drawer contains index references to a Great Idea. In center are the works of the 71 authors which constitute the Great Books.” From “The 102 Great Ideas: Scholars Complete a Monumental Catalog,” Life 24, no. 4 (26 January 1948). Photo: George Skadding.

  29. Sep 2022
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  33. Apr 2022
    1. Henri Cartier-Bresson, Roland Barthes, 1963. © PAR79520 Henri CartierBresson/Magnum Photos.

      A photo of Roland Barthes from 1963 featured in Picturing Barthes: The Photographic Construction of Authorship (Oxford University Press, 2020) DOI: 10.5871/bacad/9780197266670.003.0007

      There appears to be in index card file behind him in the photo, which he may have used for note taking in the mode of a zettelkasten.

      link to journal article notes on:

      Wilken, Rowan. “The Card Index as Creativity Machine.” Culture Machine 11 (2010): 7–30. https://culturemachine.net/creative-media/

  34. Jan 2022
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