The World 1

First year of production:

1886

Company:

World Typewriter Company , Maine , USA

Serial nr:

none

The World Typewriter was another cheap alternative for the complicated writing machines that were on the market in the 1880s. Like the American and the Hall, the World typewriter (marketed in 1886) in fact used a rubber sheet to stamp the letters onto the paper.

The original World of 1885 was a caps only typewriter. The World 2 wrote upper and lower case.

The machine worked as simple as the other index writers. The user would point at a letter with the swinging index pointer and then stamp the letter, using the keys over the platen on the left. This brought down the printing hammer onto the rubber type sheet. Inking by ink pad.

(img courtesy Cornell University online archive)

1893 illustration of a man working on his World typewriter on a train.

It is hard to say what the quality of the work was that was produced on these cheap machines. The rubber type is usually missing, or at best rock hard. In the case of the World Typewriter however, we do have a sample of the original writing. On Nov 21, 1887, one Sally used a World advertising flyer to write a letter to her 'Dear friend', it includes several comments about the use of the World typewriter (see picture 6)

Courtesy of: Robert collection