Oliver No. 9the batwing

Thomas Oliver's design is the one everyone recognises on sight: two big curved towers of type, the “batwings,” that swing down onto the page from the sides rather than striking up from a basket. That down-strike was part of how the Oliver could claim to be a “visible” writer at a time when many machines hid the line you were typing. They were built in Woodstock, Illinois, and the No. 9 is one of the later and more common models before the company wound down in the 1920s. A caution for buyers: the original carriage drawband was little more than a shoelace, so a lot of survivors don't actually work, and even a good one is a heavy, idiosyncratic machine to type on. Buy it for the history and the look, and check that the carriage pulls before you commit.