As some of you may know, my photos tended to be very blurry. I've found out why and corrected it--for some reason, the default setting on my camera was "night scenery." Here are new photos of my 1966 Sears Tutor portable typewriter and a list of Sears Tutor serial numbers that were provided to me by Jay Respler of Advanced Business Machines:
1966: 21000-47915
1967: 39000-71945
1968: 77000-96431
For some reason, the serial numbers overlap from 1966-1967.
My Sears Tutor was sold by Sears. I purchased it at my local Goodwill. My best guess is that it was sold by the Seattle Sears store, located at 76 South Lander Street in Seattle. This store has the significance of being the world's oldest continually operating Sears store. It opened in 1912 as a catalog distribution center; a retail store opened in 1925. After Sears stopped production of its catalog, the former Distribution Center was renovated as an office building, called SODO Center. By 1996, Starbucks had purchased the building for use as their headquarters. The building was damaged in the 2001 Nisqually Earthquake, but restored as Starbucks Center. It is the oldest and largest building to receive Green certification in the United States. The building was completely reclad after the earthquake up to National Park standards. Below is a rendering by Ron Wright and Associates, who designed the renovation:
For more information on the building, go to http://www.rwaa.com/starbucks.html
The part on the left is the original building, built in 1912. The red center section is from 1914.
Here is a November 24, 1912 photo of the construction progress from The Seattle Times.
This is a cake made for the building's reopening in 2003 (Courtesy of the Seattle Municipal Archives)