| Antique Standard Typewriters, page two |
| While we're at it, let's stop a second and make what seems to be a relevant point. How many companies produced upstrike standards and then converted to visible, front strike machines? How many of those survived through to the 1930's? Here's another one -- three of the biggest makers in that 1930's period, namely Underwood, Royal and L. C. Smith, never built blind-writers and thus never had to expend the capital to convert over. Interesting, when you consider timing, product quality and the marginal profit nature of the typewriter industry in general, which latter point is more relevant when you consider retooling. Now, let's move on. |
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| EMERSON No. 3 (Richard Polt collection) Another one of those unsuccessful machines. And-- for those who are keeping track-- another from the midwest! The Emerson began life in the northeast, about 1907, with one illustration showing "Boston Mass" on a very early example. Production was moved to Woodstock, Illinois, but by 1910 the company had failed. Alvah Roebuck was installed by Richard Sears to run the company, which owed Sears for loans not repaid. The Emerson design, which was prone especially to having type slugs come off the type rods, was dropped and replaced with Roebuck's own design -- the Woodstock. ( Click here for that story in detail, with many Woodstock / R. C. Allen machines.) Note the banks of type bars standing up at the sides, which rotate to the platen for printing. Shift motion is applied to the rods, not the carriage, making the machine essentially basket-shifted. |
| If we look closely, we find one relatively common theme in the machines, and companies, that didn't last; that theme is that of protracted development. This was, in some cases, due to necessary refinement of design following production of the first prototypes, or of the first production batch. In others, it was due to funding running out and the people responsible having to secure new capital to develop the machine further, acquire production facilities and buy machines and tooling. Many times, it was all of this together. You might note that the Harris Visible was designed as early as 1908, in its first form, but did not enter serious production until 1912. A similar story follows John Molle's machine. In both cases, the "first production" machines are not "model No. 1," but rather No. 4 and No. 3 respectively. It's fairly obvious that trying to get into manufacturing typewriters was as difficult and risky post-1900 as it was before, although the scope of invention had narrowed. There's another theme with the less successful machines, too; price. Many of the failed machines were priced far below the going rate of $100.00 US for standard typewriters; the Harris was originally priced about $40, and the Emerson about $50. Both were designed to do most things that a $100 machine would do, but tried to do it with a three-bank double-shift design. This is what happens when you try to undersell the established companies, even with a price fixing environment. You might be able to do it for a short time, until word is out about the shortcomings of the cheaper design, but this will catch up. The reality of the situation is that the Emerson, for example, was not a good machine at all, and failed rapidly; the Harris, on the other hand, is an excellent piece of engineering, but was still a three-bank machine. Profits were so marginal that the later Rex attempt to update the deisgn resulted in immediate bankruptcy and sellout. There are exceptions to every rule, of course. |
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| OLIVER No. 5 From the above, you might think that, in a world of four-bank machines, no three-bank machine could survive. Of course, the Oliver was no exception, but it survived longer than others because of its fantastic reputation -- and, later, lowering price. The Oliver design first hit the market in a small way in 1895, but production grew --slowly at first, then steadily-- until the machine was known the world over. The Oliver, even with its peculiar downstrike type-bars, did offer largely visible writing, and as you may note was introduced originally into a world of upstrike competition. The soundness of design, and solidness of construction, were hallmarks of these machines. This is a No. 5 Oliver, s/n 429818, manufactured in 1914. General offices were in Chicago, and plant in Woodstock, Illinois. |
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| OLIVER No. 9 This is a slightly later machine, s/n 823535, built in 1919. The success of the company can be gauged by the fact that as of 1921 the company had sold over 900,000 machines worldwide; by 1928, the figure was 1,250,000. However, even with those high totals, the number per year had dropped by the later dates, so that, in 1928, Oliver sold out everything to its subsidiary in England. British Oliver continued to build the same basic design until 1935, when it was replaced with a conventional machine -- although production was restarted for a time during the war for military use! Again, although they look odd to us today, these Oliver machines are one of the true success stories of early visible machines. |
| Another aside; you have to wonder about direct competition in the mid-west, regarding the successful Oliver. In three cases, long after it was fairly clear that the best keyboard arrangement (and thus mechanical arrangement) was four banks of keys, with single shift key, machines were built with three-bank double-shift arrangement. These were the Harris, the Molle and the Emerson -- all rooted in the mid-west, and all theoretically least expensive there (say, in Chicago or Milwaukee) because they didn't have to be shipped long-distance. One wonders whether or not these were designed to go head-to-head with the Oliver, offering a frontstrike arrangement as a theoretical improvement but retaining the familiar and directly competitive three-bank double-shift keyboard. Interesting to consider. |
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| WAGNER UNDERWOOD No. 4 (Jim Dax collection) Jim sends us a great shot of his Wagner Typewriter Company Underwood Standard No. 4, which has serial number 5699-4 and which dates to 1901. This machine is from the time when it was becoming apparent that Underwood was moving into a position to completely dominate sales in the standard typewriter market. So much has been written about these machines that all we need say here is that you're viewing the most successful typewriter design of the first half of the 20th century; the following No. 5 was the model with the highest sales. |
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| ROYAL STANDARD (Jim Dax collection) Here we see Jim's wonderful and very early Royal. This machine is serial number 3656, which dates to 1907-1908 depending on source. Either way, it's the 3656th machine built by this company, which was to move steadily upward to a position of equality to Underwood in the pre-World War 2 period. The first Royals appeared in 1906. Note that the machine has no model numbers on the front; this is commonly referred to as a Royal Standard; it says so on the paper table. Slightly later machines have more ornate decals, do not say "standard" on the paper table, but still have no model number. It appears that all of these are lumped in official serial number records under "No. 1 and No. 3," with the No. 3 differing only in having a wide carriage. (This is a No. 1.) This "flatbed" design was later dropped in favor of a more conventional format. Click here to see this design progression and to view more Royal standards. |
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| ...on to page three |