Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Royal Quiet Deluxe, 1955

In 2008, I purchased a charcoal gray Royal typewriter from Goodwill. I immediately went to the Typewriter Database (www.tw-db.com) and misread the year--I thought it was a 1957 model. After double-checking, I discovered that it was actually a 1955 model--the numbers on those tables all blend together... I also discovered that after Pastel Yellow, Charcoal is the second-rarest color that the Royal Quiet Deluxe came in.

After doing some more research, I discovered that my typewriter was designed by Henry Dreyfuss, who also designed the Princess Phone for AT&T. His design first appeared in 1948, and had a two-tone gray matte finish. By the 1950s, his design had been rounded-off, and came in a choice of gloss colors. However, it retained the tombstone-shaped keytops, although by this time they were made of plastic.

The Quiet Deluxe was further refined by 1957, with the addition of the Twin-Pak ribbon cartridge system, and a pair of keys (1/! and =/+). The design continued until 1960, when it was completely replaced by the Futura. The futura was mechanically identical, with the exception of the addition of a key-set tabulator (on the Quiet Deluxe, tabs were manually set at the rear of the machine, under the paper support) which enabled the user to push a button to set or clear tabs. Unlike its predecessor, an unlimited number of tabs could be set.

Royal Quiet Deluxe patent drawing (Courtesy of Google Patents)

Royal Quiet Deluxe patent drawing (Courtesy of Google Patents)

Royal Quiet Deluxe patent drawing (Courtesy of Google Patents)

Royal Quiet Deluxe patent drawing (Courtesy of Google Patents)

Royal Quiet Deluxe patent drawing (Courtesy of Google Patents)

1 comment:

  1. Henry Dreyfuss did a wonderful job in designing this beautiful machine. I have two 1949 models in my collection. Not too many bloggers write about the Royal typewriters, Thank You.

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