The Boys' Big Typewriters

Dan,

Two days ago I bought a typewriter like yours, a Royal Quiet De Luxe, portable in a thrift store for 5 dollars. It's sort of cute, so I thought that I would display it with my collectibles.

Anyway, I Googled out "Images" looking for it and surfed onto your site.

You said that those typewriters are from 1954. I'm not sure that's correct.

You see, I took typing in high school in 1949-1950, and the typing class still used old typewriters, some from the early 1930s or so. At that time, the typing teacher was converting all the old typewriters to the newest thing, which was molded plastic keys. The old metal keys like yours and mine were on the way out before 1954, and to my knowledge no metal keys were made in that period.

Also, our typewriters look retro for 1954. They have the "Art Deco" industrial design. Sometime during the early 1950s, the industrial designers went to "Cubism", which in my opinion sucked. Yes, Cubism started during the 1940s, and slightly before, with flat roof houses, and square block buildings, etc. Some things were slower to follow into Cubism, like Argus C3, 35mm, cheap cameras, that were still around into about 1960, or so. As square as the C3 was, it would have lent itself well for Cubism, but as you can see in the illustration, it's Deco, like our typewriters. (I have a collection of Argus cameras, all American made.)

I'm older than dirt, 72, and sometimes my mind melts-down. So, I didn't want to bother you, but I thought I would give you some feedback about the typewriters since I lived through that era, and before. If you know something about those typewriters that I don't, I would be glad to hear from you.

Stanley Buck
Waldport, Oregon