Rare Vintage Horizontal Cylinder Typewriter by Toshiba With Japanese, Chinese, and English Characters

The Typewriter Collector demonstrated an incredibly rare and fascinating typewriter made by Toshiba in 1940 and then remodeled in 1956. This vintage typewriter was the first of its kind. It used a horizontal cylinder that featured Japanese, Chinese, and English characters. They were then chosen by manually rolling the cylinder and using a metal index pointer to indicate the desired character.

Types in Japanese, Chinese + English.
Toshiba Typewriter Model BW-2112
Serial no. 7227442

The Virtual Typewriter Museum explains the design further.

Each horizontal strip shows a linear index of the characters that fitted on the type strip behind it. The character is selected by rotating the cylinder and shifting it horizontally so that the necessary character is selected with the index pointer. When the print key is depressed, the type strip is pushed upwards from the cylinder, and the type hammer swings to the center to print the character onto the paper.

via Massimo

Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.

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