Lucky Find - Oliver No. 5

I always search my local Craigslist for typewriters to see if there is anything interesting and this past week I got lucky and found an Oliver No. 5 for sale just a few minutes away from my house.  I guess you can call all of my typewriters antiques, but this No. 5 is the genuine article being manufactured in 1906!  As you can see from the photo, this is a very interesting machine with the typefaces coming down from concentric rings on either side of the carriage.  I am just getting to know this machine and will blog more about it later but I can already tell that this one is a beauty in great shape.  Not only was I lucky to find this nice machine so close to my home, but it was sold to me by a very interesting couple.  Paul Garstki and Donna Thomas had been collecting typewriters to find the type of machine that Bram Stoker had used to write Dracula.  A movie had depicted Stoker writing Dracula on an Oliver but this was not the case.  If you ever lifted an Oliver, you could tell that it was too heavy to take with you as you wrote a novel as Stoker did.  Paul and Donna found that Stoker had actually used a Blickensderfer typewriter and gladly showed me the model that they had found.  Again I am finding that typewriters always tell a story and I am glad to have met Paul and Donna.