Hoppin on the Trend Train, Woot! Woot!

How many of you are children of the 1970’s?  I grew up in the time of 8 track players, turning into cassette players, turning into CD’s.  I saw the wonder of the new VHS, the ease of recording  your tv shows on those big clunky tapes for later visual pleasure; the advent of MTV and cable tv.  Remember those big remotes, with the cord that plugged into the tv??

I was a total geek in my middle school years and office classes were my gig.  I learned how to type on those old, clunky manual typewriters, with the sticky keys, and the strips of correction tape that you had to slide in, backspacing to your mistake, and retyping over it to cover up the carnage.

Then came sixth grade.  Behold, the gates of Heaven opened, angels started singing and joy was bestowed upon all because the school felt generous enough to purchase three glossy, sparkly, new (to us) electric typewriters!  I spent the majority of that year cycling through turns on the fancy machines!  Oh the ease of that 60 lb machine, the loud pounding, the mistake correcting.  Pure 12-year-old nirvana.

Fast forward three decades  (bye bye walkman, portable cd players, brick phones, stereos that stand three feet tall, newer electric typewriters with daisy wheels, blocky computer screens with DOS and mumbo jumbo lit up in green, flip phones, first edition IPODS, IPOD mini, IPOD Nano, IPOD yadda yadda yadda) to the magic and glory of all things techy in 2016.

And what do you suppose the hot trend of this year is…  a We R Memory Keepers Typecast Print Typewriter.  You can own and use this magnificent machine for the minuscule price of $199.00

I guess everything old is new again, right?

Like I said before, I love trends.  I just can’t spend money on the newest, biggest and baddest, without doing a little DIY research first.

It took me two months of occasionally cruising Craigslist and my local second-hand stores until I finally found this bad boy:

All the rage of secretaries everywhere…in 1977.

Yes.  You guessed it.  A 1977 Brother Cassette Electric Typewriter.  One of the first models with an automatic correction function.  Jelly yet????  This baby was pristine, still in its original carrying case, with its cassette ribbon that was still in workable condition.  The type in the photo was probably the first anyone had seen in 20 years.  Goodwill price, $12.00 with a 7-day return policy if I wasn’t satisfied.  Bam!  Sold.

The problem?  This technology is so old that they don’t make the ink cartridges for it anymore.  Long story short, I did some You Tube research and I found out that these cartridges are quite easy to pop open.  If you can do that, you can buy a generic spool of ribbon (which I purchased at Staples for $7.99) and transfer out the old ribbon, and replace the new into the original cartridge.

I thought – why not. Consequently, it took me all of 30 minutes to fix the ribbon, and the results look great:

Yes. There are type-os.  I wasn’t really concerned about fixing them for the purpose of this photo.  lol

What this machine doesn’t have:

1.  A correction function.  (Anyone know where to find those oldy moldy correction strips?)  I did save the old ribbon and I thought I could cut it up and use the white half for corrections in a jiff.  If all else fails, and I actually need to correct something, I can use white out.
2. A hefty price tag.  I spent $12.00 on the typewriter, and $7.99 on the ribbon.  If typewriters go out of scrapbooking style next year, I’m out $20.00 large.  So, I’m not sweating this.

It does however have character, it’s not in a landfill, it’s 60 lbs, so I’ll never lose it.  Use the $180.00 you save to go on a We R Memory Keepers Scrap Haul, I mean they do make really cute awesome stuff!  I just couldn’t force myself to pay $200.00 for 1977’s cutting edge technology.

Even thrifty scrappers can figure out a way to hop on the newest trends without depleting their savings!

Enjoy!