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| The typewriter you see here is the only example of its make known to exist. It is one of exactly two pieces of information indicating that its manufacturer ever sold manual portable typewriters in the first place! For years, it was mysterious. Collector Frans van de Riviere, who lives in the Netherlands, recently tipped me off to the fact that he'd spotted more than one machine of this mechanical type bearing the name KONRYU. This at very first glance seemed confusing, but after a moment's introspection made perfect sense. We'll get to that in a moment. First, some details about Citizen, and about these austere little machines. |
| THE COMPANY The machine pictured above is a CITIZEN COLUMBIA XL. The name is indeed that of the well known maker of watches; less well known is its production of calculators, cash registers and other office machines-- and now apparently typewriters. (The company is also known today for production of extremely precise milling machines.) In 1964, Citizen Watch Company launched a venture with the purpose of breaking into the office machine market. Its name was Citizen Business Machines, and was based in Japan. In 1969, two things happened which were likely relevant to this machine. In that year, an arm of the company was established in the United States; this was CBM America Corporation, still in existence today. Also in 1969, the parent company (Citizen Watch Company) filed a trademark in the US for milling machines, lathes, and manual and electric typewriters. It was filed on July 24, 1969. That trademark and the machine seen on this page are the only evidence of this company having sold these typewriters, as no others have been seen and none in my internet photo archive match this machine. All related corporate histories online give no mention of these at all. |
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| THE MACHINE Above, the logo from the ribbon cover. The label on the rear reads as 'Citizen Business Machines Made in Japan.' It is certain that this is not some other kind of machine; while a number of design features are similar to other machines from around the world, the combination of features and their execution is unique. Thus, this is its own mechanical entity. The machine uses a modified dowel suspension for the key levers, with support for the dowels provided at 1/3 and 2/3 of their length. It is the simplest execution of this design principle yet seen. |
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| This machine is simply full of odd features. Note the unusual print style on the keytops, which themselves are an unusual flat style. Note also the odd arrow icon on the backspace key. The machine has no margin release key as the margins are unconventional. The left margin stop cannot be bypassed; to type to the furthest extent left, it must be moved. The right margin rings the bell only and isn't designed to stop the carriage. Thus, no need for a margin release key. |
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| The type-bar segment displays machining marks and is not finished or chromed in any sort of way. There are no empty slots in this piece, but there are provisions in the front of the machine for more keys. It may be that this is the very cheapest model, and more options were designed into more expensive units. If there ever were any, that is. |
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| Left, the trim profile of the CITIZEN COLUMBIA XL. It must be said that this is the simplest, cheapest and least sophisticated real (ie non-toy) typewriter I've ever seen. It would have been disposibly inexpensive, and if reviewed by a consumer magazine would have failed miserably. |
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| New details included: July 11, 2005!! |
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| New Information. At right we see a machine which has also been pictured on my site for a long time. This is the Collegiate, a machine sold in the United States by Western Stamping Corp. of Michigan. This company is well known for its "Tom Thumb" brand typewriters, and the bottom of this machine bears a familiar label stating the Western Stamping name, what ribbon to use for replacement, and so on. The machine is mechanically very similar to the Citizen Columbia XL, but is not identical. I now believe this Collegiate to be the "genesis" machine of the line. Information at the US Patent Office relates the fact that another name for typewriters, "Granada," was owned originally by Western Stamping but was eventually sold to a Konryu Corporation, of Japan. |
| Frans van de Riviere reported having seen machines of the variety of the Columbia in Europe, but which bore the name Konryu. In fact, I was able to discover a machine which appears identical to the Citizen machine, except for its overall white color, which bears the name Konryu Seville 3000. We can now fairly safely assume that the machines of the Citizen Columbia XL variety were also distributed by Konryu, and it is likely that this company also manufactured the machines. Indeed, the association with Western Stamping through the "Granada" name, and the existence of the Collegiate seem to work together to indicate that Konryu also manufactured the Collegiate as well. Another one of the mysteries of modern portable typewriters has been solved. Machines of the Konryu name are actually spotted now and again in Europe, and these machines were also sold by Quelle under its "Privileg" brand name. These machines remain exceedingly rare in the United States. None others have been found to match the Citizen Columbia XL, which seems a failed venture into manual portables. The run of the Western Stamping machines, earlier, must also have been brief and not highly successful. The machines are slightly too well made to be considered toys, but are absolutely the simplest and crudest possible machines to consider for actual work. It is likely this position between the world of toy typewriters and basic working machines that doomed the design in the United States -- and gave it only marginally better success elsewhere. |
| Citizen Business Machines / Citizen Columbia XL / Konryu Corporation |