Wedgefield 100 (Brother)

$195 (plus shipping if outside of the Detroit area)

Meet “Troy,” a working Wedgefield 100 typewriter from 1972 sold by Kmart that a soccer coach used to keep his team organized.

Made in Japan by the Brother company for Kmart, all of this ultra-portable typewriter’s keys strike and fall back well and the carriage moves smoothly. Please note that the end-of-line bell no longer rings, but that doesn’t otherwise affect functionality.

The font is a classic serif typeface in elite, which is a compact 12 characters per inch (see photos for a type sample). The margins are easy to set with simple push-button action, it has a ribbon selector so you can use two-color ribbons, and you can set the line space to single, space-and-a-half, or double space.

With its butter yellow all-steel body in a color Brother named “dull sun,” this manual machine has a brand new black-and-red ribbon freshly installed on it, so you’ll be ready to write right out of the box.

This vintage typewriter is small and light-weight, measuring about 12”x12”x4” and weighing under 10 pounds. It will arrive with its pale-yellow plastic case-top, so it will be protected if you take it on-the-go.