1909 McCool No. 2

The McCool typewriter was produced in 1909 by the Acme-Keystone Manufacturing Co. of Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, and sold as the McCool No. 2—despite there never being a No. 1. Using a typewheel mechanism with a three-bank, double-shift keyboard that produced 84 characters, it offered a compact, 12-pound, $25 “standard” machine at a time when the Underwood-style design was already dominant. Built for less than a year before a neighboring factory fire ended production, the McCool survives today as a scarce and mechanically distinctive curiosity in early 20th-century typewriter history. Fewer than 25 are known to be in collections today.