1 of 1- LukeIsMe
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- Registered: 14-2-2018
- Posts: 6
Royal Mercury Year?
Hello!
I'm trying to figure out which year my new Royal Mercury Portable came out.
I've got pictures, and the serial #.
Serial #: 2301639
I haven't found any info on this model online, I was wondering if anybody knew what year it came out?
Here's a pic in case that helps:
--Luke
- Lucas Dul
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Re: Royal Mercury Year?
Production started in 1939...best I can tell, 1964-5. Hope that narrows it down 
. Probably closer to ‘65
Typewriter Service Tech (and avid nerd)
- Lucas Dul
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Re: Royal Mercury Year?
Oops.
Misread the numbers. Though I’d probably pin it at the same timeframe anyway. anyone else wanna take a stab?
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- skywatcher
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Re: Royal Mercury Year?
Hi Luke
You've no doubt heard the old expression; "If you can't beat them, join them", this is what Royal did in the 1970's. From the turn of the century until the 1950's, Royal built their own typewriters in the USA. In the 1960's, Royal along with several other companies, had many of their machines built under contract (I believe) in Holland.
In the 1970's when the Japanese Yen was worth next to nothing, the Japanese flooded the world market with their cheap typewriters. Many companies simply could not compete with these cheap Japanese typewriters, so simply had the Japanese manufacturers put their brand name on these typewriters. The typewriter you have pictured is a 1970's, possibly very early 1980's Japanese built Silver Reed portable rebranded as a Royal.
There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of readily available information on these Silver Reed typewriters as to when they were made, so this is about the best we can do for you at the moment. Hope this helps,
Sky
We humans go through many computers in our lives, but in their lives, typewriters go through many of us.
In that way, they’re like violins, like ancestral swords. So I use mine with honor and treat them with respect.
I try to leave them in better condition than I met them. I am not their first user, nor will I be their last.
Frederic S. Durbin. (Typewriter mania and the modern writer)
- thetypewriterman
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Re: Royal Mercury Year?
I can refine Skywatcher's guess a little. The 'LI' symbol next to the 'Royal' logo is 'Litton Industries' - who also owned Imperial in England. From the late 1960's until about 1974 or 75, they had both Royal and Imperial branded flat portables made for them by Silver-Reed. After the agreement ended, Silver-Reed started selling the same machines in the UK under their own name and Litton went to Nakajima instead. Therefore your machine would have been made in the period 1969 to 1975. I worked for Silver-Reed UK in the 1980's and although you could work out sequences of serial numbers with the larger office machines, the serial numbers of the small manual portables seemed to be quite random.
- LukeIsMe
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Re: Royal Mercury Year?
Thanks for the help!
--Luke
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