Watched "Marty Supreme" earlier this week. It was definitely a fun watch, but you really have to be willing to accept Marty as an anti-hero, otherwise you'll just be pissed off the entire movie.

Marriott Executive Apartments Hangzhou (杭州万豪行政公寓)

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Dawn on the Su Causeway in Spring (苏堤春晓)

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Shang Palace 香宫

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Broken Bridge in Remnant Snow (断桥残雪)

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宝石山顶

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Sunrise Terrace (初阳台)

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Baoshi Mountain

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EFC欧美金融城

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Qingchung Perma

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DJI Store

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Marriott Executive Aparments Resident Lounge

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Custom design inspired by Teenage Engineering's aesthetic. The center is a 1280x400, 7.9" touch display with a Raspberry Pi 4. Building some software that will show info about the active game, an animated audio visualizer, and more. Pretty rad!

Lately I've been talking to a few people about book plates for book collectors who occasionally loan out their books. After the owner has died, these also become a part of the material culture and are used as provenance for future book collectors, librarians, and researchers. These discussions have overlapped in some recent typosphere events including Sarah Everett asking for photos of repair shop labels, Lucas Dul having printed some repair shop stickers for Typewriter Chicago, and Richard Polt announcing that he's slimming down his typewriter collection. I'm also reminded of property tags that have popped up on some of my typewriters which came out of governmental entities, banks, and other businesses as well as the custom legends, often seen in the shift keys, of glass typewriter keys to advertise dealers and repair shops.
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It all prompts the question: Has anyone ever made their own permanent labels, stickers, or permanent property tags for their own typewriter collection?  They could be both cool and decorative like bookplates, identify ownership, show provenance for future collectors. They could be simple like some of the old bank property numbers, or more ornate like the refurbishment water slide decals some rebuilders used in the mid-century [1]. They could also be as basic as some of the stickers typewriter repair and sales shops used to advertise their presence. In some sense, I'm also reminded of the inscriptions and seals seen on Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock prints. View of a silver property tag found underneath the hood of a 1961 Royal FP typewriter indicating it's property of the Bank of Commerce in Idaho Falls. One could include their name, acquisition date, model name (if it's not obvious on the machine, I'm looking at you Olympia), decorative image, "ex collectione" (a la ex libris), and a personal serial number or collection number. What else might one include? Naturally one would like to have them be durable enough that they could withstand future cleanings, dips, or encounters with solvents and degreasers. Obviously one would want these to be lovely and tasteful so as not to overwhelm a machine, potentially leave space for others in the future, and be somewhat more permanent than other tags one might have on their machines for identification. They could also be done and hidden inside body panels like some shops did for labels they used for dating clean, oil, and adjustments. Obviously one would like something better than messily hand-carving their name and social security number into the body of a machine like I've seen done with a variety of machines, or which Tom Hanks has done with sharpie on the hoods of typewriters he's donated away from his collection. One could fashion a simple metal plate to affix to their machines in the same way that Olympia added their own manufacturer's plates? These machines also often have some blank space on them where collectors could add their own plates, stickers, or logos. Where would you have such a plate made? Rear of a green crinkle painted Olympia SG1.  The bottom of the machine has a panel with a metal Olympia manufacturer's plate showing the company name, place of manufacture, and location of the dealer ship in New York. On either side is a wide rectangle where other identifiers could be similarly placed. Many collectors put a lot of work and time into maintaining or restoring typewriters in their collection. Why not show off some of this work and help to memorialize it for future generations? I recently came across a Marshall Plan sticker on a Royal KMG in the Typewriter Database that certainly helps to show it's history, why not add others?  A variety of tags, stickers, labels, and miscellanea have added to the patina and history of these machines, why not add your "stamp" as well?  How would you design a custom typewriter plate to represent yourself and your collection? What would you make it out of to give it some longevity? Would you put it on the outside to show it off or hide it inside? How else might you create some more permanent provenance for the machines you care for to pass along to future generations?
#Typewriters #bookplates #labels #provenance #typewriter collecting #typewriter history #typewriter patina #typewriter provenance

Moved my Mastodon server to a new home and it’s much snappier now. 🙌🏻

Marriott Executive Apartments Hangzhou (杭州万豪行政公寓)

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Hangzhou West Railway Station (杭州西站)

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Business Class Lounge

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Torch Hi-Tech Plaza

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