Typewriter's last word not written yet

By Reuven Fenton

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Paul Schweitzer is one of a dying breed. As owner of Gramercy Typewriter Co in New York City, he repairs machines that many consider obsolete.

"The younger generation says, 'Who needs typewriters?'" said Schweitzer, 68, who joined his father's business in 1959. "It's not true; there are people who still like hitting the keys."

Some organizations still use typewriters to write labels or fill forms. And there's always the person who just prefers to type the old fashioned way.

"Some things you can't do with a computer," said Steve Primont, owner of TTI Business Systems Inc, a supplier in New York. "We just sold 15 typewriters to a major law firm."

The typewriter industry may not be dead yet, but it has been in decline since long before the rise of the MySpace generation.

They are "a minuscule part of our business," said Tom Keirnan, owner of Professional Business Machines, an office equipment service company in New York. "We'll maybe sell a dozen electric typewriters a year, maybe two dozen."

At Gramercy, typewriters account for 25 percent of its business, the rest coming from servicing Hewlett Packard laser printers and fax machines.

"That's what pays the bills, not selling a ribbon for $10," Schweitzer said,

IBM SELECTRIC

The typewriter was first patented in 1868, and marketed and sold by the Remington gun company in 1874.

They gained popularity in the early 20th Century, with production peaking in the mid 1970s. In the 1980s, word processors -- typewriters with a memory card -- had a relatively brief run until they were eclipsed by personal computers with word-processing software.

IBM was the giant of the U.S. typewriter market. In 1975, its Selectric typewriter accounted for about 75 percent of the market in the United States. Demand started to wane in the 1980s, and the company produced its last typewriter, the Wheelwriter, in 1993.

Smith Corona, which employed 5,000 people during the early 1970s, struggled to make a profit in the 1990s. The company filed a second Chapter 11 -- the reorganization provision of bankruptcy law -- before it was sold to Pubco Corp, a Cleveland-based printer maker, in 2001. Pubco uses the name to market printer supplies.

The Royal Typewriter Company, founded in 1904, was another leader in the industry. Now the company is called Royal Consumer Information Products Inc, and sells office supplies like printers, faxes and copiers, as well as Royal typewriters manufactured overseas.

Japan's Brother Industries Ltd still makes typewriters, but sales are steadily decreasing, said Joyce Brittingham, a spokeswoman for the company's U.S. division in Bridgewater, New Jersey.