Tag: typewriter history

Typewriter Plates for Collectors?

Lately I’ve been talking to a few people about book plates for book collectors who occasionally loan out their books. After the owner has died, these also become a part of the material culture and are used as provenance for future book collectors, librarians, and researchers.

These discussions have overlapped in some recent typosphere events including Sarah Everett asking for photos of repair shop labels, Lucas Dul having printed some repair shop stickers for Typewriter Chicago, and Richard Polt announcing that he’s slimming down his typewriter collection. I’m also reminded of property tags that have popped up on some of my typewriters which came out of governmental entities, banks, and other businesses as well as the custom legends, often seen in the shift keys, of glass typewriter keys to advertise dealers and repair shops.

 
 
 
 
 
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It all prompts the question: Has anyone ever made their own permanent labels, stickers, or permanent property tags for their own typewriter collection?  They could be both cool and decorative like bookplates, identify ownership, show provenance for future collectors. They could be simple like some of the old bank property numbers, or more ornate like the refurbishment water slide decals some rebuilders used in the mid-century [1]. They could also be as basic as some of the stickers typewriter repair and sales shops used to advertise their presence. In some sense, I’m also reminded of the inscriptions and seals seen on Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock prints.

View of a silver property tag found underneath the hood of a 1961 Royal FP typewriter indicating it's property of the Bank of Commerce in Idaho Falls.

One could include their name, acquisition date, model name (if it’s not obvious on the machine, I’m looking at you Olympia), decorative image, “ex collectione” (a la ex libris), and a personal serial number or collection number. What else might one include? Naturally one would like to have them be durable enough that they could withstand future cleanings, dips, or encounters with solvents and degreasers.

Obviously one would want these to be lovely and tasteful so as not to overwhelm a machine, potentially leave space for others in the future, and be somewhat more permanent than other tags one might have on their machines for identification. They could also be done and hidden inside body panels like some shops did for labels they used for dating clean, oil, and adjustments. Obviously one would like something better than messily hand-carving their name and social security number into the body of a machine like I’ve seen done with a variety of machines, or which Tom Hanks has done with sharpie on the hoods of typewriters he’s donated away from his collection.

One could fashion a simple metal plate to affix to their machines in the same way that Olympia added their own manufacturer’s plates? These machines also often have some blank space on them where collectors could add their own plates, stickers, or logos. Where would you have such a plate made?

Rear of a green crinkle painted Olympia SG1. The bottom of the machine has a panel with a metal Olympia manufacturer's plate showing the company name, place of manufacture, and location of the dealer ship in New York. On either side is a wide rectangle where other identifiers could be similarly placed.

Many collectors put a lot of work and time into maintaining or restoring typewriters in their collection. Why not show off some of this work and help to memorialize it for future generations? I recently came across a Marshall Plan sticker on a Royal KMG in the Typewriter Database that certainly helps to show it’s history, why not add others?  A variety of tags, stickers, labels, and miscellanea have added to the patina and history of these machines, why not add your “stamp” as well? 

How would you design a custom typewriter plate to represent yourself and your collection? What would you make it out of to give it some longevity? Would you put it on the outside to show it off or hide it inside?

How else might you create some more permanent provenance for the machines you care for to pass along to future generations?

Users of the early Henry Dreyfuss Royal Quiet De Luxe Portable Typewriters

Now that I’ve got exemplars of both the 1948 and 1949 Henry Dreyfuss designed Royal Quiet De Luxe (QDL) typewriters, I’ve been delving into others who would have used these iconic machines.

The 1948 obviously has a very distinctive black frame with dark gray hood and highlights with the black stripe across the front where the badge is. The QDL’s were distinguished from their less expensive Arrow model brothers by the presence of a tabulator and the attendant tab key in the top right of the keyboard. 

The 1949 and early 1950 version of the QDL were given lighter gray bodies and the black band across the front was replaced by a chrome strip which encircled the ribbon control levers on either side.

According to the Typewriter Database and exemplars there, the Quiet De Luxe had a re-design of the shell near the end of 1950, somewhere around serial number 2,000,000 (between 1974816 and 2064139). The hole in the hood/ribbon cover was enlarged, the chrome strip across the front was removed in lieu of chrome “wing” inserts for the ribbon control levers “except on special-order and some foreign keyboards.”

Based on the photos of Royal QDL and portable users collected by Richard Polt on his website at https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/typers.html, we can now separate out some Royal portable users to more closely specify which models from which years they were using. 

I started with Vladimir and Vera Nabokov. The two photos [1] [2] taken at different angles by Carl Mydans for LIFE magazine in September 1958 clearly show a light gray machine with a tabulator, the iconic hood, and the distinctive chrome strip of the 1949/early 1950 Dreyfuss Royal Quiet De Luxe. It would be nice if Vera’s hands weren’t covering up the distinctive space bar at the front of the machine’s frame, but the look and style of the case bottom the typewriter is sitting in are also consistent with the 1949 model. Incidentally, the Mydans photoshoot was just weeks after the American release of Lolita in August 1958. It was the first novel since Gone with the Wind to sell 100,000 copies in its first three weeks.

Similarly because of the distinctive features/colors of the 1948 vs 1949/early 50 models, we can put both Alistair Cooke and James Michener down as 1949/early 1950 QDL owners. Their machines also have the distinctive all gray bodies with black spacebars integral to the frame, chrome strip on front, and definitely have tab keys.

Of those in the Polt’s list, only Theodore Sturgeon has the original Dreyfuss redesigned 1948 Royal Quiet De Luxe. This photo isn’t as clear and a museum card is covering up the black space bar. We also don’t see the cutout on the hood because of the angle of the photo, but the overall coloring, the black stripe on the front, and the chrome ovals of the ribbon controls are definitely there as is the tab key in the top right of the keyboard. Better pictures could help solidify the identification, but other QDLs were different enough in shape that I’m reasonably confident here.

Of the other Royal portables Polt has listed, Marlon Brando‘s photo will need more research, but his machine doesn’t appear to have have a tabulator based on the bare silver bar on the back where the tabulator stops would have been attached, so it’s currently misidentified as a QDL. (Edit: Some later 50’s models hid their tabulator functionality underneath the paper table, so perhaps it could have been a QDL.) It could also possibly be an Arrow, a Companion (no tabulator), the related ‘F’ model, or an Aristocrat which was also manufactured with a tabulator. Stephen King’s photos [1] [2] aren’t clear or detailed enough for me to make an easy determination other than to say they’re not from 1948-early 1950. Anne Sexton’s definitely looks like a Royal portable from the later 1950s but needs more research. It’s definitely not from 1948-early 1950 either. A possible determining factor is that hers doesn’t appear to have the typical margin release key on the right hand side which was typically placed 1/2 way between banks 2 and 3. 

For other Royal fans out there, I’m curious to hear what you think about these identifications? Which is your favorite: the 1948 or the 1949/early 1950 version? Or do you prefer those from the later 1950’s?