Colored Typewriter Ribbons

If you didn't know already, I'm sort of obsessed with typewriters. I'm always looking for new ways to write with them. There are a lot of different machines out there and even though they might appear the same at first glance, I get a thrill everytime I find a slightly different font or design. I love the variety available in what some people would think was the same every time. 

One of the things I've discovered  that's out of the ordinary for typing is colored ribbons. Oh sure, there's black and there's also the black and the red. But did you know there was green, and orange, and pink and blue? Why, there's even purple ribbons out there! I first learned of colored ribbons from a Typecaster I follow. (Typecasters are people who blog by typing and then scanning in their typed entries.) He traded me a purple ribbon for some stamps way back when and gave me the information of a ribbon wholesaler.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make heads or tails out of the wholesaler info and just went back to my regular ol' red/black beribboned life. But then, on the magic world of ebay, I noticed there are sellers of all sorts of colored ribbons.  They're all on "Buy It Now" and around $13 each, less if you buy in bulk. That's double what I normally pay for a regular ribbon, but I think it's worth it for glorious color. You can search for a ribbon for your particular machine, but most will take a standard 2" spool. All I did was search for "color typewriter ribbon".

As a reminder, I'm leading a typewriter cleaning and service workshop at the West Town Library tomorrow at 6:30PM. RSVP is required and there may not be any slots left. If there's enough demand, I may run the workshop again. Feel free to bring in your typewriter and I'll give it a look, but my skills are pretty basic. 

P.S. And I happily announce the winner of our final giveaway. The winner of the Olive Box giveaway is comment number 18: Magdalena. Please email us your member number and address straightaway to claim your prize.

Comments

[Joan Clarke]

I had no clue...thanks for this info...I'm off to get me some colored ribbon for my little Hermes Rocket. Yay!

[Dejah]

Good to gear where you can get ribbons. I have a couple of machines but I've always thought it'd be impossible to get ribbons for them because they're from the 60s. It sounds like there might've been a standard size by then (2") so I'll measure mine and hopefully start using them! I had a word processor from 1985 at the end of high school(Class of '00) and experimented a little with the typewriter but found it too physical for long sessions. But one of my first memories is of typing sentences from kids books when I was 6 or 7 on it, so I'd love to have it running again, especially since I donated the word processor to the Ransom Center. Thanks Donovan!