December 28, 2010

9 comments:

  1. Duffy MoonDecember 28, 2010 at 1:32 PM

    I imagine this sort of thing will be happening more and more frequently. It's nice to have a typospherical network with which to compare notes - one of us will always figure out some way to get what we need.
    (until this intertube thingummy goes away...)

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  2. TedDecember 28, 2010 at 2:03 PM

    I have to say it's really nice to have an actual anachronistic typewriter shop just a few blocks from where I live. I'll be buying my ribbons from Mesa Typewriter Exchange forever, if only to do my bit to keep him in business. It's worth the extra cost over Staples since I always get to talk typewriters with Bill for a half-hour or so, and I always learn something I didn't know before. (:

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  3. wordrebelDecember 28, 2010 at 2:14 PM

    Staples out here by me (Chicago suburbs) never has spool ribbons and God forbid you ask for one - those employees don't seem to know what a typewriter is! I can still find the one for my Classic 12 (and it fits others as well) at my local Office Max. This one however has the same problem yours is having: the spool has changed. While it isn't that big of a deal for my Classic 12, it is for my Olympias and Royals. Luckily I've kept a few old spools from those so I can still wind my own.

    I'd love to go and support a local shop but the closest one we have is downtown Chicago and it has very strange hours (something like 3 hours a day, four days a week). Thank God for the interwebs!

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  4. deekDecember 28, 2010 at 5:21 PM

    Yeah, if I had a local shop, I'd certainly give them my business. I know that Tom at Cambridge and Jay Respler both have good supplies and will ship, so I have those options. I also have an old friend that runs a local printer supply shop and while he doesn't have typewriter spools, he does have quality 1/2" ribbon (he inks it himself) and has mentioned he'd wind it on my spools.

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  5. wordrebelDecember 28, 2010 at 6:36 PM

    If anyone can share the addresses and/or websites of those fine establishments I'd be happy to support them!

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  6. deekDecember 28, 2010 at 8:17 PM

    Tom has the blog, "Life in a Typewriter Shop" and comes highly recommended. You can find his contact information on his website at http://www.cambridgetypewriter.com/

    As for Jay Respler, he's on the Portable Typewriter Forum on Yahoo! Groups. Just ask for him there and he should respond promptly. He's got the largest selection of ribbons in the world.

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  7. notagainDecember 29, 2010 at 12:54 AM

    I'm going to bite the bullet soon and place orders with Jay. Meanwhile I've been buying packs of red/black calculator ribbon and winding them onto spools, which got me through NaNoWriMo.

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  8. deekDecember 29, 2010 at 4:09 PM

    Yeah, I've done the red/black calculator ribbon deal as well. It works quite nicely, actually, just a little more work. My wife has an eyelet punch for some of her crafts, so I can punch these on the ribbons so they reverse the ribbon direction.

    I've also have wound my own from Epson dot-matrix cartridges, so these are all viable options, just not my first choice.

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  9. deekJanuary 5, 2011 at 12:43 PM

    And today, I went by Staples and bought the last one...

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