It's so different that some people suspect that it was not designed by Royal at all. The Signet is certainly radically different from all other Royal typewriters, except for its direct descendents shown below. Later, a second shift key was added to the right side, and eventually the shiftlock was upgraded from a tab to a proper key. Early Seniors have a single shift key, on the left, and a metal tab for a shiftlock. There are a few variations among Seniors: early ones have a tall "cowell" with the name printed up front, like the caps-only Signet others, like the one shown here, have a shorter cowell and the name printed on the paper tray.
Royal quiet deluxe typewriter serial number#
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. (I'm still trying to identify exactly what this machine was.)Ī variation, the Signet Senior, typed in standard upper- and lower-case, and came in black.
So the Signet was discontinued and replaced around November, 1933, with something Royal internally called the 845, or "45" for short. However, in the thick of the Depression, dealers had little interest in waiting for the Signet to turn a profit "in the long run". Royal had reasoned that the Signet's customers, once having mastered the Signet's simple features, would trade up for a more expensive model. At $29.50, the Signet undercut the dealers' rental and rebuilt-machines business, both critical profit items. The public was buying, but dealers weren't re-ordering.
It seems that its low cost and popularity turned out to be its own undoing. It's entirely possible that the Signet was Royal's answer to Remington's no-frills Remie Scout.ĭespite immediate popularity, the Signet was abruptly discontinued after a single year. It is caps-only, with a san-serif italic font designed especially for this machine for maximum readability. Rolled out with a heavy advertising campaign that included an essay contest, it was marketed as a low-cost alternativeįor "children, housewives, and letter writers". The first of these, the Signet, was made o nly from Autumn, 1932 until about Sept, 1933. Little information is available on this family. Note that although both the red and green versions of this model were manufactured in the same year, the red one has black-background keys and no tabulator, and the green one has white-background keys and a tabulator.
Royal quiet deluxe typewriter manual#
This early Royal design is commonly known as the "flatbed".ĭownload the manual for the Model 1 version of this typewriter here. Today, Royal is owned by Olivetti and still sells typewriters, though none with the famous Royal brand. The company still exists, albeit having undergone many incarnations as part of various parent companies. They introduced their first typewriter, the Royal #1, in 1906 and did not stop manufacturing tyepwriters until the 1970s. Royal was one of the longest-lived typewriter manufacturers. Please don't use any of the materials here without my permission. Genealogy, with a focus on the Seaver, Bilyeu, Amidon, and Lowell branches
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