
It looks like a typewriter… sounds like a typewriter… but it doesn’t type.
The “Type-Writing Clavier” was intended as a learning tool so as to save schools and institutions the cost of real machines. Wrote Charles Edwards in his 1902 patent application: “Heretofore it has been necessary in order to enable a beginner to learn the rudimentary art of type-writing to use a complete typewriting machine, which necessitated the subjection of the machine to the hardest kind of usage, to its great injury and to the expense of its owner…”
Absent are the ribbon and carriage lever, and the paper table merely supports copy from which students can practice typing, though the placement seems impractical, as typically typists view copy to the side of the machine. Edwards wrote that his machine would not only be “a source of great benefit to the student, but likewise one of entertainment and encouragement as well.”
It is unknown if any of these devices were manufactured.
You can view the patent here.
Musical instrument?
The article below mentions a “typewriter clavier,” but what that device was is unclear.
Sun, May 16, 1926 – Page 67 · Pittsburgh Daily Post (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) · Newspapers.com
© 2019, Mark Adams. All rights reserved.
The whole idea seems totally impractial.