Mechanically minded people, like NS, who collects typewriters, are inclined to the human scale. The typewriter is one of the first machines that allowed for a direct contact between one’s hand and one’s words. Inventors designed this small, clearly useful machine for the strength of a human hand. The typewriter is one of those machines that evoke the writer, and great writers of the past usually preserved their machines. Think of Ian Fleming, whose gold plated Royal is showcased, and Hemingway’s Royal, which I have seen in his home, Finia La Vigil, in the Cuban village of San Francisco de Paula.
Not only loving the human and historic properties, NS says he relishes the fact he can fix it by studying the insides. He loves the mechanical simplicity, which is something he cannot say for his computer or cell phone.
NS collects Royal typewriters, because he loves to be able to see design changes over the years on the Royal Serial Number Page online. He sends me his very favorite Royal, a bright pink 1955-1956 Royal Quiet Deluxe, which came in a choice of six colors (pink, red, green, gray, blue, black).
The Royal Typewriter Company was founded by Edward Hess and Lewis Myers in 1904 in Brooklyn: running out of money, they approached a financier, who was impressed by the ball bearing design and the visibility of the words as they were struck on the one-track rail. You may ask, didn’t typists always see the words as they were typing? No, not until the typewriter was standardized into a machine with keys, versus a machine that pushed a ball holding raised letters. Not until 1853 was this breakthrough invented, which allowed typist to see what they typed, as typed.
The invention happened in Italy, and they called the machine the Cembalo scrivano o machina da scrivere a tasti (the Scribe Harpsichord). In neck-to-neck competition in early world of word processing, typists used the Malling Hansen Danish Writing Ball in London offices until 1909. The porcelain ball held characters on short pistons that went through the ball to the paper. Key striking machines adopted the innovation of this machine. The strongest fingers struck the most common letters.
In 1910 the office typewriter became standardized
Manufactured as desk models, the mechanics of the typewriter remained the same until 1961. With the invention of the Selectric, the mechanism returned to the type-ball. The great invention eliminated the nasty key snarl-ups that many of us oldsters remember inking up our hands. But to return to the key stroke Royal, which did NOT allow for a change of fonts, as if that were possible in the 1950’s.
The Royal connection with Prize fighting?
Yes, in order to promote the brand new portable version in 1926, the company sponsored the Dempsey–Tunney championship. When that stunt became a huge success, the company bought a Tri-Motor airplane in 1927 that dropped 200 free typewriters in crates with parachutes over the east coast. The first drone delivery, Royal delivered 11K typewriters. Only ten arrived damaged. The company still makes manual portables marketed to Asia.
When NS found his little pink portable at Alpha Thrift, he tells me he fought through a group of UCSB undergrads who gathered to poke and gawk at this machine. Their questions: How does this thing delete? How does it search?
How does it print? NS laughed. He packed up the little portable in the case, total weight about 15 lbs.
When NS got it home, he easily repaired the machine. Think about this next time your computer goes down. To get into the workings you press a chrome button on the side releasing to show the keys, ribbon, ribbon spools, touch control (how hard your fingers strike the keys from 0-9) on a little slide bar. A wing holds up paper and red indicators show margins. NS likes the tombstone shape of the beige keys, simple to work, unlike your iPad. A tab, a margin release, spaces at 1/2 and 1/4”… And just so those UCSB undergrads know, this typewriter has a backspace key, and a little white chalk packet of paper for corrections. The original purchase price? $50.
The Royal Quiet Deluxe is most desirable when found in feminine colors, such as NS’s pink, giving a nod to all those 1950’s co-eds beginning college. Today a colorful well-preserved metal-encased Royal goes for $400.