The first was a 1930 Royal Quiet. It was in fair shape, but it did not come with the case. The crinkle paint was chipping in a few places. I have a more than reasonable like of Royal typewriters, but I have a nice QDL at home and a brown QDL (of the same vintage) at work. So, I don't need another. At $30 I thought it was a reasonable price for one that old, but I like complete typewriters. A missing case is not something I would want to deal with. The other typewriter was a 1960s Smith-Corona Sterling 12 in blue. At $19 I thought the price was acceptable and I bought that one.
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| 60s Style |
When I got it home and started the process of cleaning it up, there were a few problems that manifested themselves. First, the internal typebar cradle was not in the machine. It was at the bottom of the case. It did not have any cork, rubber, or felt padding, so I took some leftover material from the Skyriter project and make a nice pad. Ace Hardware hand the appropriate replacement screws. The whole process quieted down the machine a great deal.
This body-style has a sliding ribbon cover. My ribbon cover was loose because a screw fell out at some point during the life of the machine. This caused the cover to be misaligned and the "1" key and +/= would strike the edge of the opening. Flipping the machine over, I found the shift stops and fiddled with them. I was able to dial in a setting that would allow the typebars to clear the opening of the ribbon cover. They clash sometimes when the cover is not properly seated, but we can live with that. There is one problem; I have an extra screw and spring that came from the machine, but do not appear to go anywhere. The machine works fine. I think that the spring might be for the lid mechanism, but it dosen't really matter. It's a perfectly fine typewriter that now puts us up to 10 total typewriters.
