Olivetti Lettera 32 — Portable Typewriter (Schreibmaschine)

The Olivetti Lettera 32 is the portable typewriter Marcello Nizzoli shaped for Olivetti in 1963 — the machine that followed the Lettera 22 and became the one journalists and students actually carried. Flat, light, and finished in that particular Olivetti blue-grey, it is in design collections as often as it is in attics.

They are common enough to be affordable and good enough to be worth restoring: most change hands between €25 and €120, the median sits at €70, and exceptional or boxed examples reach €395. Production moved around — Ivrea, Barcelona and Mexico all built them, and collectors treat the Italian machines as the reference. The fitted case is normal rather than a premium, so its absence is the thing to ask about. Ribbons are still made, so a dry one is not a fault; a seized carriage is. Priced daily across Vinted, Marktplaats, eBay, 2dehands and Kleinanzeigen.