@Mr.DuckSauce: Should ask how J.K Rowling made Harry Potter, she wrote it on a napkin in a bar.

Mr.DuckSauce

@JDisnidiet: Being a writer means being a drunk, have you not heard thing's that goes with that profession?

Mr.DuckSauce

I felt sorta obligated to post, even though I have nothing constructive to add to the discourse.

I'd totally buy it if I had the money, though.

JustThisGuy

@JDisnidiet: Most of us are probably doing a good job of that without typewriters...

Hectorvex

That typewriter is cursed - the last user drank himself to death before he was 50. Be careful...

JDisnidiet

@Noobs-R-Us: Yeah like all those dumb old rags those dudes Monet and Renoir painted on. Who would want that junk?

av8thor

I cried the day DNA passed away. I don't think there's a single author whose work I enjoy more.

Geisrud

@Platypus Man: Their grandmothers, rather.

Platypus Man

Wow, that's a bit much... I mean, I love Hitchhiker's Guide as much as the next guy (I'm sure I'm not the only one here who has the leatherbound "Bible-edition," as I call it), but that much for a typewriter? I mean, DNA was a hell of a hoopy frood, and he knew exactly where his towel was, but still... Though, to be fair, I acknowledge the fact that there are plenty of people who would throw their own mother in front of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal to get one.

Platypus Man

No, not worth it. Why would I want to pay to have someone's elses old junk?

Noobs-R-Us

I learned to type on a machine that looked a lot like this. I still remember having to open the top to untangle the keys when I got going too fast. To this day, I bang the hell out of keyboards, and I blame these machines for that (that and an old Western Union Telex machine). You had to really pound those keys to get them to strike the paper, moreso if you used carbon paper (now available only in antique stores), white out or correction paper.
Thank God for technology.

Curves

25K huh? Let me check my couch cushions...

Hectorvex

oh if I were a rich man...

Denver_80203

You would think it'd be selling for $42,000, no?

bobojuice

Great literature will never be produced through a word processor.

Slartibartfast

@Geisrud:
"I cried the day DNA passed away." Me too, as with John Lennon.
Say, I wonder if this, perchance, is a player typerwriter?

ANoel

I have no sense of the collectibles market or anything of that sort, but I actually think that $25k is a steal for this thing. Granted, Adams was no Asimov, but he did have a significant influence on the genre and on many an impressionable 13 year-old's mind (mine included). I wouldn't be surprised to see this on auction for double the sum in a few years.

weatherman

@av8thor: Somehow I don't quite equate an old crappy typewriter to a work of art...humm...

Noobs-R-Us

I'm practicing to become a writer in my off hours this summer...

strider_mt2k

@Platypus Man:
"I'm sure I'm not the only one here who has the leatherbound "Bible-edition," as I call it"

Yes.. and I have it signed by Doug when he was touring about one year.

Denver_80203

Also cried a little when I found out. Those books get a re-reading every year, and they always get better. Like visiting an old friend who can tell you the same story, but with new details.

@JDisnidiet: Pretty sure that he died working out.

$25k for a signed typewriter AND a first printing of H2G2? A machine that used by a man that had a hand in shaping adventure games, sci-fi, and the modern internet? (If it comes with the Starship Titanic box) that is a steal!

Human Bomb

@Slartibartfast:
"...a word processor"
Isn't that what a writer is ?
Yes, Douglas Adams does blend!

ANoel

@Denver_80203: Oh holy crap that's awesome. I, on the other hand, didn't read the books until after he had died. But seriously, that's so awesome...

Platypus Man

@strider_mt2k: What is this "off hours" you speak of?

Drew P Draws

@Noobs-R-Us:
You may be right (or left) !
Adams was quite an unusual, creative and distinctive writer ... maybe it was amino acid... amino acid residues crucial to the binding of the androgen receptor to target DNA sequences are a common cause of receptor-binding positive androgen resistance and that variable impairment of DNA binding can lead to distinctive phenotypes.
I rest my case.

ANoel

@Noobs-R-Us: Nahhh- he just had an imagination the size of a planet. You ever watched "red dwarf"? Now Grant and Naylor on the other hand...

Kit Eaton

@ANoel: I don't know about the rest of you but I always thought that DNA read like someone who's high on acid...

Noobs-R-Us

@av8thor: Ha. Well played.

Jimbuck

@wjousts: Never ever go anywhere without your towel. That includes into the ground in a coffin. Chances are, he's got his towel with him.

Hectorvex

@Platypus Man: I mean, DNA was a hell of a hoopy frood, and he knew exactly where his towel was, but still...

I wonder what an auction for DNA's towels would get?

wjousts

I DARE somebody to use this as a prop in the Sam Shepard show "True West"!

IphtashuFitz

The only work out he got was lifting a pint or 20. His last work was so bad that it was obvious that he was cratering and that he was an out of control drunk. Some think it makes them better writers, but all alcohol does is make them drunk writers.

I liked his work, but think it's a shame that he chose to drink himself to death rather than live and write more. Cue the appropriate sad song...

JDisnidiet

methinks JDisnidiet does not know who he's talking about and is mixing him up with someone else...

KhaiJB

@JDisnidiet:
"... all alcohol does is make them drunk writers"

TOLSTACHAOLIS (phr.)

What the police in Leith require you to say in order to prove that you are not drunk.

@JDisnidiet: SAY IT!

/ADAMS, The Meaning of Liff

ANoel

@JDisnidiet:
... are you drunk?

ANoel

@JDisnidiet: Adams died of a heart attack at the age of 49 on 11 May 2001, during the rest period of his regular workout at a private gym in Montecito, California.

wjousts

By the way, he was a complete Apple fan boy.

DeadWriter

I highly recommend Last Chance To See [www.amazon.com] . If you can find the BBC programme online, I recommend spending an evening with it. It may be his best work.

At his last talk, somebody made the mistake of asking about why a towel was so important. I won't repeat the origin of the importance of a towel as a prop, as it will kill some of the magic of the Hitchhikers books. He did not suffer fools gladly.

He wrote for the BBC, most notably for Doctor Who. He was a lesser Python.
He lived the rockstar life as a writer.

Most people are collectors of one thing or another. I use a manual typewriter from time to time, and I would love to sit at this one for an evening. I am not compelled to want to own it though. I use the tools in my life, and if it isn't going to get daily use, then I don't need it.

DeadWriter

Wow, this would be an amazing collectible to own... And from one of my more froopy favoritist writers! If only I had the disposable income... *cries into a towel for comfort*

Tony C

@pearl: Have you heard of a thing called notebook computers? How about Word? Ring any bells? Do you not like spell check or something?

Noobs-R-Us

@Killjoy: Now Pink Floyd music is definately created with acid!

Noobs-R-Us

The owner of this will be one cool frood

archetype94306

@Noobs-R-Us: They're not crappy, they're nice typewriters. I have a Hermes one myself, though a smaller one.

pearl

Regarding his Apple fandom: The factoid (as in it may be utter bunk) is that Douglas Adams and Stephen Fry owned the first and second Macs ever sold in the UK.

He also got to play onstage with Pink Floyd during one of his later birthdays. I would not buy this typewriter, but I'd pay money for a bootleg of that show.

Killjoy

@Noobs-R-Us: Funny you mention that, the typewriter does ring a bell.

DeadWriter

Analog? Pfft! Nothing THAT good ever came from analog. This must be one of those improbability typewriters. But the odds of that are...well...improbable!

JEmlay

*hats off to the greatest writer this world has ever seen*

jigsawfallingintoplace

Can you picture the Hermes, the 1st, and an actual manuscript of Hitchiker's in a glass display?

"But, boy... wouldn't it be worth it?"

Absolutely. It's hard to believe that there are people on this site that don't understand the concept of a collectible, and that collectibles gain in value.

@Noobs-R-Us: "Somehow I don't quite equate an old crappy typewriter to a work of art"

How about the actual brushes, paints and palet used by Renoir or Monet? Worth owning?

@weatherman: "Granted, Adams was no Asimov..."

Thank God. I'm a big Asimov fan, but I don't think the man even once made me literally LOL like Adams did on a regular basis. Although if Doug had written over 300 books...

GadgetPlay

[www.vintagemacworld.com]

Some guy got his computer!

benjgvps

That is so worth it. If I wasn't going to pay out my ass for tution next year, I'd buy it.

Dragonis

"The following Listing ID could not be found: 529347759"

Mthree

Small price really considering the history. More than worth the asking price to me...

pcypert

Obviously there are a lot of DNA fans here. They will continue to deny that his alcoholism had anything to do with his untimely death, or with the increasingly bad writing he did in his later, more inebriated years. He was good in the beginning, but he chose to stay drunk. That was his choice, and I have no problem with that, but facts are facts. He was an alky, and his work suffered as a result of his drinking.

Those of you who think it's a good deal, go ahead and buy the typewriter.

JDisnidiet

Anyone else notice the Starship Titanic sticker in the background? :)

Douglas Adams were probably Apple's biggest fan. I wish I could take part of his understanding and share his excitement regarding new Apple products. If anyone have read the foreword to "The Salmon of Doubt" or otherwise read some of his things, you will know what I am talking about.

When I finished reading all his books and stories I felt sad. Sad that I wouldn't be reading anything new from him. However, I usually find myself taking one of his books from the bookshelf for a trip down the wonderous world that is Douglas Adams.

Pressure

@JDisnidiet: Iron-clad proof please. Otherwise, keep your 'opinion' to yourself.

gargravarr

@JEmlay: hahaha.
me btw. absolutely loves the hermes. when i will ever write a book it'll be on a hermes.

krom

@JDisnidiet: just tell me, which was his last work? (try not to google 1st)

krom