With the end of World War Two, Royal starts up “A” and “C” Model production right where they left off in 1941. The 1946 “Quiet De Luxe” and war-hero “Arrow” models are snapped up by a typewriter-starved public, and you can have any color you want, as long as it’s black. The middle-market “Aristocrat”, un-needed […]
Month: June 2015
Unraveling the Royal Quiet De Luxe – Part 2: Birth of the QDL (and siblings)
The Quiet De Luxe “A” Model that Royal introduced in 1939 had direct parentage in the “A” Model “De Luxe” and the short-lived 1938 “Quiet”, but it looked like neither one. Royal had consolidated all four of it’s 1938 higher-end models into just three variations of a single brand-new design: The “A” Model “Quiet De […]
Unraveling the Royal Quiet De Luxe – Part 1: Ancestry (Model P, O and B)
Ahh, the Royal Quiet De Luxe, AKA the “QDL” or the “Model A”. It’s the most popular typewriter among the TWDB’s Typewriter Hunter members by the number of galleries entered (100+ so far). The TWDB’s Royal Serial Number page is also the most popular page on the site by a long shot, among those users […]
The Royal Sabre of Portugal
Oh, and just so you know I’m not off my Composer kick, look what’s headed my way as you read this: Nick T’s Composer and typeballs, adopted by yours truly to the Corral of Increasingly Print-Industry Related Machines. We’ll see how I do with one of these finicky difference engine escapement typewriters when it has […]
Presshunting: A. B. Dick 320
When I was fairly little, about 8 or 10, my dad brought home an old A. B. Dick tabletop offset printing press (they’re actually called “duplicators” when they’re this small) and set up the beginnings of his print shop right there in the laundry room of the little ranch house on Dolphin avenue. This was […]
More Typeface Fun with Mothra!
Classified News (Composer ball CN-x-x) and a Large Elite 72
Spot The Typewriter – Upside Down, Left To Right: A Letterpress Film
You can play “Spot The Typewriter” while watching this short and interesting film about letterpress printing. Why doesn’t that surprise me in the slightest? :D Oh, and neat idea for a Typecasting-sized BAROP… Upside Down, Left To Right: A Letterpress Film from Danny Cooke on Vimeo.
The Rosetta Stone: Olivetti Lettera 32 Cracked wide open!
Behold: The Rosetta Stone. Four legal-sized columnar notebooks filled with serial numbers and dates entered into inventory for every new and used typewriter that passed through the doors of MTE between 1950 and 1987. Thirty-seven years worth of handwritten notes in pencil by (from my count) at least five different hands. 138 pages of essentially […]
Brown Plastic Cases are KEY! Smith-Corona Datecodes
I found a 1970’s Galaxie 12 today while doing some light thriftin’ – normally I don’t much like the Brown Plastic Case era SCM’s, but these latter-day Galaxies are usually good machines. Besides, I had to at least look for a datecode. For eight bucks, I didn’t pass up this one, and yep – brown […]
Machines Should Work – People Should Think!
Well, it turns out Olivetti wasn’t the only typewriter company producing trippy acid-fueled industrial films in the 1960s’. IBM got into the game too, and in 1967 commissioned Muppets creator Jim Henson to produce this short film extolling the benefits of IBM office products, including the newly introduced Selectric Composer. A weirder mix of suits […]