Merritt Typewriter

A typewriter from 1890s

This is the Merritt typewriter, It seems has been sold from 1889 till around 1896, and could have been produced around 15000 pieces in total.

The Merritt belongs to the group of the index typewriter, and was considered the best of this group. It was the lowest-priced of the group, and was less complicated. But it's not a toy typewriter; it's a typewriter made for hard work.

There isn't a keyboard, but this plate with the letters and symbols, and an index pointing at them.

It's a so-called blind typewriter. It doesn't mean is for blind people, it means that you cannot see what you write, until you lift the carriage.

The design seems unconventional, but in the 1890s, there was a huge array of typewriters of different sizes, designs, and prices. And there was no standard yet, so if you saw this typewriter in 1890, you wouldn't realize it was unconventional; your only concern was whether you could afford it and whether it would perform the task for which it was designed.
Standardization came later, and of course, the more complex but faster typewriters, equipped with typing bars, prevailed.

There aren't the typing bars, the typefaces are on a sliding support. Inside it there are all the typefaces, on a metal bar. By moving the handle back and forth, each typeface come to the printing point.

The weak point of the Merritt was the speediness. Optimistically, the speed was half that of a standard typewriter.

But there were a lot of good selling points that they insisted on, in the advertisements. Main selling point was the price, 15$, that is around 500$ nowadays, and the portability.

I don't want to annoy you, if you want more information, you can see this video with explanations on how it works.