In Mechanica Antiqua

This was a pretty easy fix, owned by the same person I did the Corona 3 for.  The Silent-Super was the high end version of the Clipper and Silent 5 in the 1950s.  The main two things it featured over the S5 was a keyset tab system, and a pastel color palette.  This machine in particular is their lovely Alpine Blue.  The Silent-Super series came in four other colors: the standard Sapphire Grey, Coral Pink, Sea-foam Green, and Desert Sand. In the mid-1950s, these machines cost around 129 US dollars, which in today's money (2019) is a whopping $1,209.  Most midsize machines fell in this price range.  A lot of people feel like typewriters have gotten more expensive and the newer machines like the Epoch from Royal are cheaply manufactured garbage.  In part, this is true, but the reasons they are cheap is a little deeper than you might think.  A modern laptop from apple costs about a thousand dollars.  In 1956, a Corona Silent-Super cost about a thousand dollars (inflated).  The Roy

I have so many mixed feelings Okay, it was cool, the idea was cool... I got the machine in original condition (gloss black) for 20$.  A Royal Portable Second Gen... How could I not?  It cost 20 because it was garbage.  Working decently garbage, but the amount of rust and corrosion this machine was full of blew me away.  "What have I done" was the first thought that went through my mind.  But it was cheap.  I decided early on that I wanted to try repainting it.  Either dark Navy, or Yellow.  Yellow machines tend to sell well, so I went with yellow.  Now this is a 1930 Portable like my red one, but this one comes with a tab and black key legends. okay, so maybe it wasn't too bad.... Half of me thinks I should've left the patina and just got it working.  Half of me is okay with this...It might do well. The first thing I did was dismantle the body panels and the carriage.  This is common practice with pretty much all machines I work on. 

Poor lighting :( This machine, the first generation of the Royal Portable Typewriter was introduced in 1926.  Generally known as the OT mode, some of them bear the P label as well, and technically these had no model names.  They were the Royal Portable.  This machine revolutionized portable typewriters, it was quite a bit larger than most of the time, but featured nearly every major amenity of full sized standards.  Eventually other manufacturers followed suit, but this was the machine that paved the way to mid-sized marvels.  I prefer the post 1930 model with the gull wing ribbon colors, but this was way too sweet to pass up. I picked this machine up off of ebay for around 100$.  It came with a matching green case and a lot of issues, including a snapped carriage release leaver.  I had initially planned on selling the machine, after giving it all new rubber and a full clean, but the Model P line up is my absolute favorite and I just couldn't see this one going anytime soo