A while back I was on a typewriter forum (Facebook group? Reddit? I don’t remember!) and someone was showing off a typewriter they had that had an “Olde English” font. It was stunning! The suspicion was that it was owned by a church or similar that wanted to type that kind of style. In the comment, someone happened to mention that it wasn’t as cool, but that they had a typewriter ball for their Selectric. Oooh. I want one.
The hunt was on for an Olde English Selectric II typewriter ball!
I scoured eBay and found one, for the Selectric III. I wasn’t paying enough attention, and discovered only after it arrived in the mail that the Selectric III and Selectric I/II balls are not the same. I was pretty mopey about this because it turns out that it’s actually tricky to find the Olde English type ball for the Selectric I/II.
But how could I be sure it was the right one at a glance on a listing? Thanks to this reddit post I learned that the Selectric III balls tend to have yellow lettering, whereas the I/II balls have white. Indeed, that was the case for mine!
Upon seeing my disappointment, MJ suggested getting a whole Selectric III typewriter, which I briefly considered, but decided against, though I definitely appreciate the spousal support in my space-consuming hobby! Instead, I set up an eBay alert for Olde English Selectric to see if I could snag one.
It took a couple weeks, but I found one! It was sold as a set of five balls, some of which I already have, but for $80 I could have it delivered. Sold.
And so, it was the moment of truth! How beautiful will this type be?
So beautiful. I went with a quote from Nosferatu.
But I wasn’t done! While searching for this type ball, I discovered this paperweight: a Selectric ball in Lucite from 1961 that says “Advocate”. Well, that had to come home to me. And so it did.
Now keep me away from eBay for a while.