Antique American Caligraph New Century Typewriter No. 5, Year 1900.

Exceptional antique typewriter made in New York, USA in 1900. This is a real museum piece because of its ancient age and important design. The machine is in good condition and works perfectly, though the ink tape is dry and has to be changed. This is a Caligraph New Century Nº5 with black-lacquered iron-cast body and downstrike keyboard. In this system the typebars hit the paper from below and return to their place thanks to gravity. The user, though, cannot read what he or she is typing. This system became obsolete when downstrike keyboards appeared, and so this typewriter is a real witness of the first times of writing machines.Over the carriage we can see a clear inscription in golden lettering with the name of the typewriter: New Century CALIGRAPH. The words NEW CENTURY are also printed at the bottom of the article, just below the keyboard. In front of the carriage and over the typebars there is a similar inscription with the name and city of the manufacturing company: AMERICAN WRITING MACHINE CO. NEW YORK. Both the typewriters body and the metal mobile parts are in good condition, showing only slight signs of the trace of time which are signs of this ancient machines life. At the top of the article, just on the right side we can see the serial number printed in the metal: 1387.The keyboard is made up by circular white and black keys with brown spacebar. All the keys are original and in good condition though some of the small letters are distressed and have lost their finish to a greater or a lesser extent. Nevertheless the typewriter can be used to write just like new; the user will just have to change the ink tape. Caligraph typewriter was a design of Franz C. Wagner y George Washington Yost Newton, invented in 1880 for American Writing Machine Company of New York. The first model printed only capitals and was substituted by model Nº 2 with a double keyboard with small letters too. Models Nº 5 and 6 changed the name for New Century Caligraph, as more conventional machine with also double keyboard. This rare typewriter is a highly decorative and beautiful article that combines functionality and old age in a real museum piece.