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Estate sales still surface the best machines at the best prices, but only if you know how to read the listing before the sale opens. Here are the signals that separate a productive drive from a wasted morning.
The label just says 'universal typewriter ribbon'. In practice, the material — cotton, nylon, silk — changes the impression, the lifespan, and whether you can re-ink at home.
The seller is watching. The other customers are watching. You have ten minutes with a machine you may take home. Here is a routine that fits those constraints and misses nothing that would kill the deal at home.
A repainted machine with reproduction glass keys is not, in the collector's sense, the same object as an original. Neither seller nor market always makes the distinction. Here is how to make it yourself.