1 - WJC
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Colorful Royal HHs?
Whenever I see images of Royal HHs online, they always seem to be in that weird brown color with the green keys (if anyone can remember the name for that brown-gray color, that'd be much appreciated!). However, looking at advertisements from the time, the HH is advertised as coming in multiple colors:
The only examples I could find online were these ones on the Typewriter Database, which look to be in a grey color with black keys, and a slightly darker brown color with green keys:
So my question is, where are all the colorful HHs? I feel like they'd be very popular with collectors, as the advertisements make the colors look very visually appealing. Have the various colorful Royal HHs faded overtime, or where the HHs in color just not popular back in the day?
A Royal fangirl, through and through.
- Pete E.
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Re: Colorful Royal HHs?
Just a thought...but maybe Royal intended to sell the vibrant colours but buyers for office-environment machines went for traditional and basic colours and many of those pastel colours just did not get ordered/sold...??? Just a WAG.
These colours in the portables seemed popular and are abundant. Maybe a single person choosing such colours for their personal machine was willing to go for them.
I remember the purchasing agents at companies I worked for were pretty conservative and grey or black goes with any colour scheme in an office environment that might be popular at the time.
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- WJC
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Re: Colorful Royal HHs?
I suppose that would make sense, like how Royal FPs are commonly gray, with other colors being less common. I'm still sad that I can't see pictures of those bright green and blue HHs, they look so cool in the advertising, and I'd love to see examples that still survive today.
A Royal fangirl, through and through.
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Thread Starter- Pete E.
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Re: Colorful Royal HHs?
I do not think I have ever seen a Royal HH with white/cream coloured key-tops...for that matter. Other than in the adverts.
- WJC
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Re: Colorful Royal HHs?
I decided to do one last google search and I found these two examples!
The white keys make me think that these might be originals and no just repaints!
A Royal fangirl, through and through.
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Thread Starter- robmck
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Re: Colorful Royal HHs?
Wow! They exist, and this person has two of them. (And in the comments of one, someone said they, too, had a green HH).
Nice job googling! May you be equally successful in finding one someday.
- robmck
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Re: Colorful Royal HHs?
The paint is looking pretty rough, but here's another: 1956 Royal HHP standard Horizon Blue Smooth Typewriter rare for restoration | eBay
- Pete E.
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Re: Colorful Royal HHs?
Great finds. So they do exist !
- Uwe
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Re: Colorful Royal HHs?
WJC wrote:
... (if anyone can remember the name for that brown-gray color, that'd be much appreciated!)....
There were seven colour options for the HH:
Charcoal Grey (smooth)
Gray Frieze
Royaltone Dark Grey (wrinkle)
Royaltone Light Grey (wrinkle)
Nile Green (smooth)
Horizon Blue (smooth)
Coral Rose
The pronoun I has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
- WJC
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Re: Colorful Royal HHs?
Ah, thank you! Do you happen to know which of those colors is the common one that most surviving HHs have? Or do the survivors cover multiple of those colors and I'm simply bad at distinguishing the difference? I've mostly just seen pictures online, so it's possible that I've seen many Royal HHs in different colors, and I just didn't recognize the difference.
A Royal fangirl, through and through.
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