I live in Toronto, Canada with my wife and daughter and have been collecting antique typewriters since 1988. Over the years I have put together a collection of typewriters dating from the 1880s to the early 1900s.

Welcome to my site - I invite you to browse my collection and discover for yourself this wonderful world of antique typewriters!

If you have any questions, require some information or have an early typewriter for sale, please be in touch.

Collector's Biography

Martin was born in Durham, England in 1959. His father, a research professor in visual perception at York University since 1967, began collecting antique mechanical objects such as butter churns, seeders and medical implements when Martin was a child. Growing up in this environment gave Martin the desire to form his own collection of something old and mechanical.

One day, in 1989, he spotted high upon a shelf in a cluttered junk shop, a very dusty but intriguing item. It turned out to be a Caligraph typewriter from the early 1880s. He was hooked. He has been a collector of the world's first typewriters (1880s & 1890s) ever since and has amassed the most important collection of its kind in Canada. The collection contains many rare and historically important machines.

• Hall
  First index typewriter (no keyboard), the world's first portable, 1881
• Hammonia
  First European typewriter, Hamburg Germany, 1884
• Columbia
  One of the few early typewriters to use proportional
  spacing, 1884
• Crandall
  First typewriter with a single-type element, 1886
• Victor
  First typewriter to use a "Daisy Wheel", 1889

Martin's collection also boasts a fine array of decorated ribbon tins, mechanical devices, advertising and letterheads from the period.

Rarely does he happen upon a typewriter in an antique shop. More often he tracks them down through word of mouth and the promoting of this hobby by displaying typewriters at events and local antique shows. His website also helps to put him in touch with people and their typewriters.

Martin is passionate about his collection and will go to great lengths (or heights) to acquire a new machine. Once in New York City, while on his honeymoon, he found a machine at a flea market. Unfortunately he had promised his wife that he would accompany her to the top of the Empire State Building after visiting the flea market. His arms were quite stiff after having waited in line for 2 hours carrying a 25lb machine. It may be the first and only time a 100-year-old typewriter has visited the top of one of New York's foremost landmarks.

In focusing on the pioneering efforts to create a typing machine, Martin has acquired machines of unusual design and of great beauty. He has always been interested in objects of antiquity and their historical context. In collecting typewriters he has found an ideal venue to connect with early machines, to practice and develop conservation techniques and to be the curator of his own museum.

Martin resides in Toronto with his wife and daughter. His wife, who fully supports his obsession, requests only that he limit the machines to his office.

© , Martin Howard