- SoucekFan
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- Registered: 27-12-2015
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Re: My Love For Royal Quiet De Luxe
The price for the glossy QDLs has been super inflated for a while now. It is why I am not able to own one for more than a couple weeks, as it it too tempting to sell them to pay for a bunch of other machines.
- KatLondon
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- Registered: 11-10-2014
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Re: My Love For Royal Quiet De Luxe
I've been thinking about all this Royal QDL love - I got mine down again - and while the more work I do on it, cleaning cleaning using using, more cleaning - I just can't love it that way. It has a very nice, distinctive, light touch, but it just bunches up the letters even if you try to be very careful, and somehow compared to any old Olympia I've ever used - even the bangers - it feels a little bit of a plodder... But his is just one machine, and it is possible it's had a very hard life. It just isn't possible to see these QDLs in this country the way you guys have them - stumbling over them at every turn - & the coloured ones never made it over here at all. This is the only one I've managed to get my hands on.
The one I have that is most like it in touch, and in general style, in a way, is my 1955 Halda. I have a feeling that's possibly the European 'nearest equivalent'. 
- TypewriterKing
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- From: DeepInTheHeartO', Texas
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Re: My Love For Royal Quiet De Luxe
It does look a lot like a forties Royal portable. If I'm not mistaken, doesn't Halda have a kinship with Facit, or is it that they were just made in the same country--Sweden?
Underwood--Speeds the World's Bidness
- TypewriterKing
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Re: My Love For Royal Quiet De Luxe
KatLondon wrote:
I've been thinking about all this Royal QDL love - I got mine down again - and while the more work I do on it, cleaning cleaning using using, more cleaning - I just can't love it that way. It has a very nice, distinctive, light touch, but it just bunches up the letters even if you try to be very careful, and somehow compared to any old Olympia I've ever used - even the bangers - it feels a little bit of a plodder... But his is just one machine, and it is possible it's had a very hard life. It just isn't possible to see these QDLs in this country the way you guys have them - stumbling over them at every turn - & the coloured ones never made it over here at all. This is the only one I've managed to get my hands on.
The one I have that is most like it in touch, and in general style, in a way, is my 1955 Halda. I have a feeling that's possibly the European 'nearest equivalent'.
To be absolutely honest about it, I have mixed reviews of Royal portables--some I've used, like you said, were plodders with a ponderous touch and they did tend to pile letters one on top of another. Others I've used were quite light and bouncy. The pica typewriters tend to pile worse than the elite typewriters. I have gotten improved performance out of both when I carefully oiled then with tranny fluid (ah, that good stuff--the elixir that reneweth the ages), but I still had to be careful. So far, Daddy Sam seems to have been the best all arounder in the Royal portable category. It is a pica type, but it's not too bad a piler. Besides, it belonged to my girlfriend's Daddy, and that makes it one of my top machines. I'm keeping it for both my girlfriend and her Daddy.
Underwood--Speeds the World's Bidness
- KatLondon
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- Posts: 995
Re: My Love For Royal Quiet De Luxe
Wow, that's really interesting about the pica. Mine is pica. And I'm also glad to know that it's a thing and I'm not just unfairly maligning an entire make of machines. I'm glad yours is a good one, as you're going to be keeping it!
- pdxtypewriter
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- Posts: 139
Re: My Love For Royal Quiet De Luxe
That wasn't mine. I don't buy at auction. I will buy completely refurbished machines (except new paint jobs) with new rubber, etc, but I'm not into the auction scene.
So, I either catch them in the wild in great condition, or I buy from a few shop sources refurbished. Not interested in tinkering, only typing, and too many horror stories about auctions.
- •
Thread Starter- Repartee
- Key Master
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- Posts: 683
Re: My Love For Royal Quiet De Luxe
Regarding online auctions -- the motivation is that of the chronic gambler. Sure there are disappointments and maybe even some outright cheating, but occasionally there is the Big Score and the rush keeps you looking for the next one.
Regarding piling - one of my most disappointing pilers was a 1940's Royal Quiet DeLuxe (we do not abbreviate when we can avoid it, sniff), and yes, it was a pica. Seemed to work beautifully until I tried using it seriously which means paying a little less attention to technique and more to content. But I have not tried the tranny fluid - there are some $4.99 bottles of the stuff in the back rear upper corner of my corner store...
"Damn the torpedoes! Four bells, Captain Drayton".
- KatLondon
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Re: My Love For Royal Quiet De Luxe
By the way, the pink one linked up on eBay earlier in this thread went for $318.
- Repartee
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Re: My Love For Royal Quiet De Luxe
By the way, the pink one linked up on eBay earlier in this thread went for $318.
Pink, for some reason, seems to be the hottest typewriter color. Not my first choice! I was seriously looking at a typewriter from Germany in candy apple red. I would assume it had been repainted but was extremely well done, and I'd take that before a pink typewriter any day.
"Damn the torpedoes! Four bells, Captain Drayton".
