Having found a US-Made Royal Sabre-style “Sears Portable” this past week, I realized that TWDB now has a few each of the two different Sears machines that were specially manufactured for Sears by the Royal Springfield plant in the US. In examining them, I came to the realization that I had also had the oldest Sabre in the TWDB pass through my hands, which was a 1970. 
See, the thing is that the “Sabre-style” Sears Portable came out in *1966*, when Royal was still making and selling the “Safari-style” Royal Portables, and before the Litton takeover. The “Sabre” and the new front panel style for Royal Portables didn’t start until *1968*. Therefore, it’s probable that Sears commissioned the “Portable” with a front panel style different than the Safari, ordered a whole bunch in 1966 – 60,738 units separate the three “Portables” in TWDB – could be that Royal took their sweet time and spread the production across all of 1966, but also possible Sears bought >60k units all at once. We know it had to have been a special order because not only are the shells a distinct paint color (Tangiers Gold}, but the Sears models lack Magic Margins. 
Then, two years later, Royal stops making the “Safari-style” front panels and switches to the “Sabre-style” ones, first used on the Sears Portable. They could have been cheaper to make than the more curved “Safari-style”. In any case, Sears then orders another big batch of Portables in the same design, but now badged as the second variation of the “Cutlass“. These 1970 models are still “Made in USA” despite the Springfield Royal Portable plant being officially closed in 1969. That could indicate the serial list approximations being a bit off, or the date we have for the plant closure could be off, or maybe they were built in 1969 and warehoused until 1970 (like we *know* that Remingtons were). No way to know which without more data, but the Sears Royals certainly seem like they were among the very last US-made Royal Portable production, and *might* have been the design precursor to the “Sabre” – the *last* design of the classic Royal Portable. 
