Dating my royal typewriter

The initial Royal typewriter was later followed by two additional models, the Royal This will pinpoint the exact date of manufacture as well as.
Table of contents

In order to promote the new portable Royal president G. Royal's introduction of its portable line of typewriters was an immediate success and launched the company to become the world's 1 selling typewriter brand.


  • friends after dating advice;
  • how to get a girl to like you on a dating site;
  • how to use carbon dating formula;

On October 9, , the " Hartford Daily Courant " reported that Royal had just produced its one millionth typewriter. To promote the ruggedness of its typewriters, George Edward Smith, president of Royal, bought a Ford-Stout tri-motor airplane in August This plane, commonly called the Royal Airtruck, dropped over typewriters in crates with parachutes to dealers over the eastern seaboard of the USA on its maiden flight.

Royal eventually delivered over 11, typewriters this way with only ten being damaged. In January , Edward B. Hess, one of Royal's founders and vice presidents, died in Orlando, Florida. Hess was a prolific inventor and held over patents relating to the typewriter.


  • fetal dating ultrasound;
  • ukrainske kvinder dating;
  • jackie and kelso dating in real life;
  • 1 - 24 of 26 ads for "royal typewriter" within Antiques, Art & Collectables.
  • salman aishwarya dating pics;

World War II brought tremendous change to Royal. In order to aid the war effort, Royal converted its manufacturing to war work exclusively. Royal manufactured machine guns, rifles, bullets, propellers, and spare parts for airplane engines. It wouldn't be until September that Royal started typewriter production full-time again and not until December that it caught up on its pre-war backlog. In , Royal produced, in limited quantity, a gold-plated version of its popular Quiet Deluxe model. Ian Fleming , the British novelist who wrote the James Bond novels, used one. Many other writers, including Ernest Hemingway , used a Royal typewriter.

Other typewriter manufacturers utilized Royal's innovations in their typewriters. Worldwide demand caused Royal to open a new factory in Leiden, the Netherlands, to produce typewriters in In April , the Royal typewriter Company announced its plan to merge with McBee, a leading manufacturer of accounting and statistical machines and supplies. Royal McBee was consistently listed as a Fortune company. In December , Royal announced it had just produced its 10 millionth typewriter.

Congratulations were received from U. The deal became final in March Litton would change the name of Royal McBee back to Royal Typewriter and reorganize the company into five divisions: October saw Litton announce plans to acquire the English typewriter producer Imperial, through its Royal Typewriter division. In January , Litton Industries further cemented its hold on the typewriter market by purchasing the German typewriter manufacturer, Triumph Adler.

Almost immediately, the U. Included in the deal was Royal Typewriter.

Standard Manual

For nearly two decades Royal was a part of the Olivetti family. During the s, Royal also produced consumer daisy wheel printers like the Royal LetterMaster and Royal OfficeMaster , the former being a cheaper model. A Royal typewriter is a large story element in Stephen King 's novel Misery. A Royal typewriter with a Prestige Elite typeface was one of the items found at Zodiac suspect Arthur Leigh Allen 's apartment, matching the typewriter the Zodiac killer used to write letters sent to the Riverside Police Department.

Jessica Fletcher used a Royal typewriter to write her novels. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The Royal Typewriter Company Type. This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Little information is available on this family. The first of these, the Signet, was made o nly from Autumn, until about Sept, Rolled out with a heavy advertising campaign that included an essay contest, it was marketed as a low-cost alternative for "children, housewives, and letter writers".

It is caps-only, with a san-serif italic font designed especially for this machine for maximum readability. Despite immediate popularity, the Signet was abruptly discontinued after a single year.

Royal Typewriter Company

It seems that its low cost and popularity turned out to be its own undoing. The public was buying, but dealers weren't re-ordering. Royal had reasoned that the Signet's customers, once having mastered the Signet's simple features, would trade up for a more expensive model. However, in the thick of the Depression, dealers had little interest in waiting for the Signet to turn a profit "in the long run".

So the Signet was discontinued and replaced around November, , with something Royal internally called the , or "45" for short.

How to Identify a Royal Typewriter | Our Pastimes

I'm still trying to identify exactly what this machine was. A variation, the Signet Senior, typed in standard upper- and lower-case, and came in black. It was apparently manufactured simultaneously with the caps-only Signet, leaving it unclear as to whether the two have unique serial number sequences or are intermixed.

There are a few variations among Seniors: Early Seniors have a single shift key, on the left, and a metal tab for a shiftlock. Later, a second shift key was added to the right side, and eventually the shiftlock was upgraded from a tab to a proper key. The Signet is certainly radically different from all other Royal typewriters, except for its direct descendents shown below. It's so different that some people suspect that it was not designed by Royal at all. Lending substance to this theory is the fact that no Royal design patent exists for the Signet.

I have found design patents for every other model, including the Junior and one model that was never made, but not for the Signet. There is one patent for an early concept of Royal's first portable: It bears a striking resemblance to the Signet. Perhaps an old design was dusted off and tweaked? Following in the Signet's footsteps, the Junior was also aimed at Depression-stricken Americans. Like the Signet, there is no tab, backspace, margin release, ribbon color selector, or left-hand platen knob. Mounted in the center rear is a single left margin stop, eliminating the need for a right-margin bell.

The shell is made of the thinnest sheet metal, easily pliable with your bare hands. All evidence indicates that the Junior was a direct evolution of the Signet Senior, as their internal workings are virtually identical. The "missing link" model shown above is effectively a Signet Senior with the Junior name on it.

It appeared sometime in late or early the earliest ad I have seen ran in April, '34 ; only about 5, Juniors were made in this style before changing to the sloped-top body shown below. Yet another version of the Junior exists, with a squared-off shell more closely resembling other Royal products. It appears to have been introduced around June, Some are equipped with a backspace key, while others are not.

Navigation menu

Based on ads, industry publications, and serial numbers, the timeline of the various versions is roughly: Signet possibly shares serial number sequence with Signet Senior; at least 24, combined units Sloped-body Junior appx 30, made Royal 10 Serial S This model is frequently referred to as "Touch Control" because that is the only labeling to be found aside from the Royal logo the decals, alas, are almost completely worn off of mine.

Many collectors refer to it as the Model O because the serial number carries an "O" prefix. Officially, Royal called this the Portable Standard. It's unclear exactly when this body style was introduced; the earliest example I have seen dates to Later versions have a raised, wear-resistant logo on the paper rest.

Yet this is classic s design, and a terrific typer for actual use. Royal DeLuxe Serial A The DeLuxe is very similar to the Portable Standard in style and function. It has the addition of a tabulator, a paper guide, and of course its signature "crinkle" finish and chromed bands. Down the road, the DeLuxe would be merged with the short-lived Quiet model and become one of Royal's most popular models, the Quiet DeLuxe. The KHM is essentially an update to the Model 10, with plastic inserts replacing the 10's iconic glass windows.

Note the curved scale incorporated into the right-side panel. It's the indicator for a touch-control adjustment wheel located at the lower center of the back of the machine. Not a new innovation for Royal, but more visible than it had been. The KMM introduced Royal's famous and patented Magic Margin system, whereby holding down the right or left margin lever and sliding the carriage to the desired location "magically" set the margin.

Although dating from , this KMM was probably rebuilt sometime in the s. The original round, glass-topped keys have been replaced with plastic keys, a common practice back then.

Royal Typewriter Demonstration

Notice, though, that the tab set and clear buttons are still the old style. The slightly indented plastic keys actually make this machine much easier to type on. These are great machines. Get one if you find one. Royal Companion Serial CD Royal Arrow Serial CR This version of the Arrow was made exclusively for the U. Note the embossed and chromed "U. Navy" on the paper rest. Specifically, it was what was known as a radio mill--a typewriter with a special, 9-pitch all-caps typeface and slashed zero that the ship's radio operator would use to transcribe incoming messages.