Exceptional Yost No. 4 Typewriter with Hidden Writing. USA, ca. 1900

This curious and attractive typewriter is an antique piece, a collectors model full of interest and rareness. It is a Yost Nº 4 typewriter with downstrike keyboard, in very good condition. The typewriter has been fully revised and adjusted so it is in good working order. This model does not have the classic tape roll for printing the letters, but instead the levers touch an ink pad and after print the symbols on the paper. Though it is thought mainly to be exhibited, it can also be used to type documents using a sheet of tracing paper. Yost typewriters were manufactured by the Yost Writing Machine Company from Bridgeport, USA. The inventor, George Washington Newton Yost, was a relevant pioneer in the development of these machines. Before launching the Yost, this entrepreneur produced other famous models such as the Caligraph, one of the Remingtons main competitors. Yost typewriters introduced a new movement (the grasshopper movement) for the type bars, provided a greatly aligned work. Curiously enough, George W. N. Yost followed a popular trend which believed that spirits can talk to human beings by using typewriters. This singular model boasts quite an advanced design for its time, in spite of being still a downstrike typewriter. It is in excellent condition and working order. The black-enameled iron body still preserves the original decorative golden lines and also the name Yost printed over the keyboard. The bar that appears over the O probably to indicate that it should be pronounced as a long O. One of the metal parts at the top bears the engraved inscription PATENTED with the serial number 55293. As antique as special, this stunning Yost Nº 4 cannot be missing in a complete collection of antique typewriters.