A Plug ... and a Plea

A while back I posted about my delight with a mint-like Remmington Quiet-Riter. In the post I mentioned that the core was lacking from the left-hand ribbon spool. Remmington ribbons come wound on a unique core (kind of like the sly razor/razorblade tactic) that slides over the built in center post, and I mentioned I had to make do because of one missing core.

A few days ago the box on the left arrived from Australia. It was sent all that way by John "McTaggart", who we have learned to listen to when he comments, as his advice comes from a depth of knowledge acquired during a 50-year career in typewriter repair.

This October, likely spurred by the silly froth spewed by newcomers like me, John started up the blog, McTaggart's Workshop. So far it has but one post, and that one is a doozy. His description of his approach to cleaning up a dirty typewriter is engaging and clearly written, not to mention a huge resource. As Scott Kernaghan commented, it included "a metric tonne of good advice".

I make use almost daily of the blog roll on one or another of the typosphere blogs, but had not come across McTaggart's Workshop until today. The most useful feature, and also the worst feature, of our blog rolls is that they order by posting date, and old stuff gets rolled to the bottom. Which is why I hadn't found McTaggart's Workshop, and so wanted to plug it here. The hope is that we can encourage John to come up with more posts.
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John kindly sent me not only a core, but also an original ribbon wound around it, all wrapped in the original cellophane. But wait, there's more ... he also included two shiny Remmington spool covers.

Those shiny spool covers will greatly spiff up my Remmington, and I'd love to dig into its purple depths to add that spool core. But I am in a quandary. To use that spool would mean digging it out of that ribbon, which is likely dried up, destroying the packaging in the process. I'm thinking I like it better as it is, looking shiny new in its wrapper. 

I could wait until the existing purple ribbon poops out, and decide then what to do.

Or I could simply add it as is to my growing collection of ribbon containers, some of which also contain original ribbons, as a reminder McTaggart's generosity and thoughtfulness.

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