By Isla Quinn
Click. Clack. Ding. Then the long zip of the carriage going home.
That sound came out of a small town in Piedmont. Ivrea made typewriters, calculators and early desktop computers for Olivetti, and in 2018 UNESCO listed the town itself. If you are looking at a vintage Olivetti on a flea-market table, or thinking about a gift for someone who writes, a few dates and facts are worth knowing first. Some of them the sources do not agree on.
The town
UNESCO’s page describes “Ivrea, industrial city of the 20th century” as a model of the modern industrial city. It was founded as an industrial base in 1908 by Camillo Olivetti, a date Wikipedia gives in one place and then changes to 1909 in another. Olivetti made typewriters, mechanical calculators and desktop computers there, and the city served as a testing ground.
The inscribed property covers 52.37 hectares, with a buffer zone of 278.32 hectares, under criterion (iv). UNESCO says Italian architects and town planners designed most of the buildings, a large factory plus offices, social services and housing, between the 1930s and 1960s, under Adriano Olivetti’s direction. The Movimento Comunità, founded in Ivrea in 1947, shaped the ideas. UNESCO also notes that 44 per cent of the former industrial and corporate buildings are vacant or underused.
Wikipedia’s article on Ivrea adds that it sits on the Dora Baltea in the Metropolitan City of Turin, that the listing date was 1 July 2018 (reference 1538), and that the population peaked in the 1970s. It gives 23,599 residents for November 2017 in the infobox and 22,604 for 2021 in the text.
The Lettera 22
Wikipedia’s article on the Lettera 22 credits Marcello Nizzoli as designer. It gives the introduction year as 1949, or 1950 according to the company’s current owner, Telecom Italia. The article on Olivetti itself says the Lexikon 80 and Lettera 22 were released in 1948 and 1950, both by Nizzoli. So the pages offer 1948, 1949 and 1950 across two articles. We do not choose.
What the Lettera 22 article does state plainly is physical.
- Weight: 3.7 kilograms.
- Size: about 27 by 37 by 8 centimetres, plus 1 to 2 centimetres for the carriage return lever.
- Award: Nizzoli received the Compasso d’Oro in 1954.
- Successor: the Lettera 32 followed in 1963.
Our reading: 3.7 kilograms is portable, not light. It is a machine to carry from desk to desk, not to slip into a handbag.
The Valentine
Wikipedia’s article on the Olivetti Valentine says it is a portable manual typewriter using internal mechanics from the Lettera 32. Ettore Sottsass designed it in 1968, assisted by Perry King and Albert Leclerc. It was introduced in 1969, on Valentine’s Day according to the article, and the last production year was 1975.
The body is injection-moulded ABS plastic, mostly red, with orange ribbon spool caps, black plastic keys with white lettering, a silver metal return arm and a red swing handle. The case is a colour-matched plastic sleeve with black rubber straps. Most were red. The article says small numbers were also made in white for Italy, blue for France and green for Germany.
It was marketed as a mass consumer and leisure item, aimed at young people. Production started in Italy and later moved to Spain and Mexico.
The article records a disagreement. Sottsass wanted a basic, low-cost design. Olivetti pushed for ABS, upper and lower case and a right-margin bell, which raised the cost. Sottsass distanced himself from the project, and King and Leclerc completed it. Similar designs include the Monpti of 1968, made in Brno in Czechoslovakia, and the Antares Lisa, whose trademark was registered in 1972.
Why it stopped
Wikipedia’s Olivetti article says that by 1994 the company stopped producing typewriters. Its Programma 101, released in 1965, is described as one of the first commercial desktop programmable calculators. The same article gives the 1932 portable as the MP1, the Modello Portatile.
Side by side
| Question | Source A | Source B |
|---|---|---|
| Company founded | 1908 (UNESCO, Wikipedia) | 1909 (Wikipedia, later section) |
| Lettera 22 introduced | 1949 (Wikipedia, Lettera 22) | 1950 (Telecom Italia, quoted by Wikipedia) |
| Lexikon 80 and Lettera 22 | 1948 and 1950 (Wikipedia, Olivetti) | not matched in the Lettera 22 article |
| Ivrea population | 23,599 (2017) | 22,604 (2021) |
Questions a buyer would ask
Can you date a machine by its serial number? The pages we read do not say, so we do not. Ask the seller for the model name on the case and check it against a model history from a source you trust.
Does the colour matter? For the Valentine, the article says red was the main colour, with small runs in white, blue and green for particular countries. Our reading: a non-red example is the uncommon one. The article does not say what that does to its value.
Is a plastic body a worry? The article says the Valentine’s body is ABS plastic. It says nothing about ageing, repair or condition, so we leave those to a specialist.
What kind of sources these are
UNESCO’s World Heritage page, the strongest source, for the town. Four Wikipedia articles for the machines, the company and the town. One attempted page, Britannica’s entry on Olivetti, did not load. The Lettera 22 and Valentine details rest on Wikipedia alone.
What we left out
Prices, auction results, repair advice and the company’s later financial history, which fills much of the Wikipedia article and has nothing to do with the machines. We also left out the Battle of the Oranges, Ivrea’s carnival, which Wikipedia says is poorly understood in origin and which is a topic of its own.
Quick answers
Why is Ivrea a UNESCO site? UNESCO lists it as “Ivrea, industrial city of the 20th century”, inscribed in 2018 under criterion (iv), for its factory, offices, social services and housing built for Olivetti.
How heavy is an Olivetti Lettera 22? Wikipedia gives 3.7 kilograms and about 27 by 37 by 8 centimetres.
Who designed the Olivetti Valentine? According to Wikipedia, Ettore Sottsass, assisted by Perry King and Albert Leclerc, in 1968. It was introduced in 1969.
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