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Antique Underwood No. 5 Typewriter
Serial number 2930530
All keys strike, but that is the extent of the testing performed.
This typewriter is nearly 110 years old but in good condition for it’s age.
This is your chance to own a true piece of American history!
When most people think "old typewriter," they picture something much like the Underwood No. 5. Why? Because this is the most successful typewriter design in history. When the Underwood was first introduced, it was only one of hundreds of competing and extremely varied typewriter designs. But by 1920, almost every typewriter imitated the Underwood.
The Underwood typewriter is the creation of German-American inventor Franz X. Wagner. The name "Underwood" comes from John T. Underwood, an entrepreneur who bought the company early in its history. (The Underwood family was already a successful manufacturer of ribbons and carbon paper. It's said that when Remington decided to produce its own line of ribbons and carbon paper, Underwood responded, "All right, then, we'll just build our own typewriter!")
If you have an Underwood No. 5, you should enjoy its nearly-indestructible workmanship, classic design, and historic significance. You should type on it, just to experience what it was like to be a typist in the days before electric typewriters and computers.
The Underwood Typewriter Company was an American manufacturer of typewriters headquartered in New York City, with manufacturing facilities in Hartford, Connecticut. Underwood produced what is considered the first widely successful, modern typewriter. By 1939, Underwood had produced five million machines.
From 1874, the Underwood family made typewriter ribbon and carbon paper, and were among a number of firms who produced these goods for Remington. When Remington decided to start producing ribbons themselves, the Underwoods opted to manufacture typewriters.
The original Underwood typewriter was invented by German-American Franz Xaver Wagner, who showed it to entrepreneur John Thomas Underwood. Underwood supported Wagner and bought the company, recognizing the importance of the machine.
The Underwood Number 5 launched in 1900 has been described as "the first truly modern typewriter." Two million of these typewriters had been sold by the early 1920s, and its sales “were equal in quantity to all of the other firms in the typewriter industry combined.” When the company was in its heyday as the world's largest typewriter manufacturer, its factory in Hartford, Connecticut was turning out typewriters at the rate of one each minute and, along with Royal Typewriter Company, made Hartford the “Typewriter Capitol of the World”.
