Finding a Place for The Petite Toy Typewriter

A few weeks ago, we had a small birthday party for our grand-daughter, at a local ice cream shoppe called I Scream Ice Cream. Bill runs the place, and he's decorated the interior chock-full of memorabilia and other artifacts from the 1950s-'70s. I don't think there's an empty place on the walls or shelves for any more artifacts.

The front seating area

Seated in Bill's ice cream shoppe, enjoying a cup of yummy goodness and eyeing all the paraphernalia of mid-20th century culture on display, it suddenly hit me that this would be a good home for that Petite Toy Typewriter, a gift from a YouTube viewer of mine, that hadn't found its way into the rest of my typewriter collection -- mainly because I don't collect artifacts to be put on display, but rather I collect functional writing tools, and the Petite, though it technically has an inked cloth ribbon, can hardly be called a serious writing tool. The Petite was basically in storage, for no one to enjoy, least of all me.

It would be safe to call I Scream Ice Cream ecclectic!

And so the week after the birthday party my wife and I headed down to I Scream Ice Cream for a snack and also an opportunity to give the typewriter to Bill. As it turns out, he already knows John Lewis, as John frequents his shop, both of them being located in the same part of town. Bill was overjoyed to receive the typewriter. I had included a sheet of paper along with carbon paper, in case someone wanted to type on it and the old ribbon was too dry. This was Bill's first toy typewriter, a fact that I found amazing, since he's managed to collect lots of other things, including one of the largest collections of transistor radios I've ever seen.


What an amazing radio collection!

This Sony, from 1953, is the oldest in Bill's collection



I've yet to revisit Bill's shop to see where he's decided to put the Petite, but will do so soon, as I have a hankering for more delicious ice cream!

Here's a video I made about the Petite Typewriter: