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The history of this site is fairly well known. However, for new collectors and fans, and for those unfamiliar, here's a brief synopsis.
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...about 'the site for collectors of portable typewriters'
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August 1999: Will Davis decides to begin collecting "old typewriters." While I was attempting to write a book on a totally unrelated subject, the typewriter I was using sort of became a focal point rather than tool. I looked inside of it, and realized that I had no idea how anything in there really worked. I wondered if, since it was pretty old, it was of any interest -- if anyone were collecting, researching, or anything. And I wondered if any more were out there. Knowing that there weren't typewriter shops around, I called a local antique store to ask if they had any old typewriters. The answer was that they had one, a portable. Black. I went right up there, and bought my first collectible machine, which is the Remington 5 you see here.
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I bought a bunch of typewriters in a few months, but what really caught my eye were the portables. I liked the differences in styling, the colors, and the idea of studying the different mechanisms too. I'd been educated and trained as a nuclear engineer, and had other wide ranging experience both in a hands-on mechanical sense and a research sense -- to say nothing of having had honors grades in English. I decided that I'd get into these machines. Purchase of the standard reference books didn't help me much since everything in there was much older. Nifty, and I had a few antique machines from the start, but the portables really did it for me.
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Foreign made machines quickly took off as my main source of interest, since a good deal of mystery surrounded them. I both got connected with other collectors in various ways, and began to write brief articles for my site. It grew from one page, in March 2000, to two, and on. Articles were placed on the pages, which I just deleted when they were replaced, magazine style. I did print them all for my own reference, and still have them. Within a year, it became apparent that I'd need some kind of archive for information. Soon, The Portable Typewriter Reference Site was split off from the original site, which retained its original title of "Portable Typewriters by Will Davis," which it still has today.
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The site traffic grew steadily following several very popular articles, including those concerning the Alpina, the Cole-Steel and later on, the Rooy. I started writing for ETCetera, the Journal of the Early Typewriter Collectors' Association, and immediately began to both spread further the fun and enjoyment of portables, and began to reach back toward my beginning in collecting, with an early ETCetera article (and simultaneous website pictorial) about the Blick Universal.
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Everything took off after that. I can't say when, during this long time span, I decided that I'd "arrived," and that people were taking portables seriously, but I assure you it did happen somewhere along the way. Many others are now on board too, and have a place to discuss portables at The Portable Typewriter Forum. I added many more articles to the PTRS, and created new other sites about various collecting stories and our hobby, and one about the often humorous things you find in typewriter manuals. I've made many friends along the way too, and very many of them were behind me from the start. Oh, they weren't too sure what I was up to, but they knew I meant business and backed me on that alone. They are mentioned on my main index page as the people who, in the embryonic phase of my site's existence, helped ensure not only its survival but constant growth.
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