Hammond was one of the original typewriter companies that produced beautiful desktop, and later portable, machines. It was advertised early on as having 100 styles of type and the ability to write in as many as 26 different languages. In 1889, Remington was a clear rival as evidenced by a challenge between two agents, one of Hammond and one of Remington, for a sort of typewriter dual in front of an audience. The letters between the two agents were published in the St. Albans Daily Messenger (Vermont), and were clearly written with the purpose of boosting sales. This rivalry revealed that the WWE style of wrestling insults today is not a new idea. In 1913, the president and inventor of the Hammond Typewriter Co. died while on a yachting trip, after family members tried to have him declared insane three times, starting in 1907. Luckily for us, the manufacture of these beautiful machines persisted through the 1970s, switching to the VariTyper model around the late 1920s. (See VariTyper brand page for examples from our collection.)