‘Time machine of creativity’: Even in digital age, demand for typewriters fuels N.S. business

In a house beside the ocean in Queens County, Rachel Spence takes a disassembled typewriter out of a bin and begins carefully cleaning off the grime.

“This one is in pretty good shape, actually,” she says. “So many problems are actually related to [dirt] because typewriters are covered in old oil, dirt, grime, nicotine — so much nicotine — and that becomes kind of a thing.”

Spence is cleaning and repairing the machine in preparation for sale — part of a business that arose out of a difficult experience early in the pandemic, when Spence lost her job and caught COVID-19 in quick succession.

Looking for a hobby in the wake of that disruption, Spence got into typewriters. Her business, Ocean View Typewriters, now sells machines to customers across the country.

“It definitely fills a niche for people,” she says. “It's that literal thing of your brain really just connecting to the words that you're actually putting on the page.”

Spence had never owned a typewriter before moving to Nova Scotia.

In 2020, she was working in publishing in Toronto when the pandemic hit. Spence was laid off and soon afterward caught COVID, which ended up turning into long COVID. That made it difficult for her to look at screens or work fixed hours.

“I had to really think about what I needed after that point.”

Seeking a calmer pace of life, Spence and her parents found a house for sale in Port Mouton, N.S., and bought it sight unseen.

They moved to Nova Scotia in 2021, when Spence, who has a long-standing love of words, began collecting typewriters.

“Of course when you get a typewriter that's been sitting in like a closet … it’s not working very well,” she says.

“I've always been very mechanically inclined, it’s like, ‘Let's find out how the heck to work on one of these and repair it.’”

For a time, Spence collected and repaired typewriters as a hobby.

“And once you start collecting, it can be hard to stop, especially with typewriters.”

As her collection expanded — with machines from the late 19th to the mid-20th century — she decided she could stand to part with some and began selling them.

Spence finds typewriters online or through antique stores and other second-hand sources, and fixes them up before selling them for a few hundred dollars and up, depending on the condition and make.

She says her customers range from people returning to the typewriters of their youth post-retirement, to parents buying typewriters for their Gen-Alpha children.

She says for many people, writing without generative AI, autocomplete or the opportunity to easily correct mistakes allows them to be more creative.

“There’s something really freeing” in using a typewriter, she says.

“I think that even for kids, it's actually really a good skill for them to learn, which is that making mistakes is OK.”

Spence isn’t alone in her appreciation of typewriters.

Actor Tom Hanks is a typewriter enthusiast, and it’s an open secret among the typewriter community that Hanks will respond to any letter written on a typewriter, Spence says. (Spence is proof of this, having received a response back from Hanks in 2024.)

Taylor Swift also featured a Royal KMH machine in the music video for Fortnight, spurring a wave of interest in typewriters among young people.

Spence says typewriters — which have a rich history tied to the development of society over the 20th century (in some cases, shaping that history) — continue to draw people in.

“It's kind of like this weird time machine of creativity,” she says.

‘Something … wildly amazing about this technology’

For Spence personally, she says typewriter repair has given her an opportunity to connect with something tactile, as she continues to recover from long COVID.

“I think my favorite part is that unlike something on the screen, you really do see the finished product in front of you and you know you did that with your hands,” she says.

“I just feel like a lot of people are seeking [that].”

Spence says even in an increasingly digital world, that desire for tactility can help explain why typewriters still have appeal.

And considering that typewriters have been around for well over a century — and are still inspiring devotion — they’re not going anywhere, Spence says.

“Everyone finds typewriters exciting and fascinating. I don’t fully know what the magic is because I think it’s a little different for each person, but there is something really wildly amazing about this technology.”

MORE TOP STORIES