Typewriter Talk / Effaced serial number?

**Posted by Repartee** 17-10-2015 18:18:39

To the eye it looked like several digits of this serial number had been deliberately ground out...

Enlarged, the situation is less clear. Shallow impressions + normal wear and tear, or deliberate attempt to alter?

Machine is a Royal 10.

**Posted by TypewriterGuy** 17-10-2015 19:30:34

Looks like paint chips to me. Sometimes serial numbers were not very deep, and were shallow. When rust and paint chipping comes, it looks like the serial has worn away, but it hasnt.

**Posted by Fleetwing** 17-10-2015 21:10:07

I agree -- not ground off; just lightly stamped and the flaked off paint makes the numbers tought to read. Looks like X1006154, yes?

Funny how the Royal serial numbers are all slanted and uneven, as if done by hand in a great hurry. You would think they could have made them neater. Reminiscent of numbers I've seen stamped on Soviet WW II-era rifles, which were cranked out as fast as possible with little consideration for final detailing.

**Posted by Repartee** 17-10-2015 22:56:39

Now that's an interesting comment. I don't have much to compare to, but on this Underwood 5...

...the serial number is much neater. I would have assumed all serial numbers were stamped by hand.

This may shed some light on why the "y" on the Royal is noticably raised about the line - simply poor quality control, in line with the serial number.

**Posted by ztyper** 18-10-2015 00:17:11

As a die-hard Royal fan, I am going to point out that it's probably not the company's fault for having the 'y' slightly raised. It might have been damaged at one point during its long life; plenty of time for something to be knocked out of alignment. And if you're really going to base a typewriter's quality off how nicely the serial number is etched in, then you might have to lower your standards for a lot of typewriters out there. (most of them Royals )

Last edited by ztyper (18-10-2015 00:27:39)

**Posted by TypewriterGuy** 18-10-2015 06:47:08

I have noticed, Royal 10s almost ALWAYS have a prolem with the typebars.

**Posted by Repartee** 18-10-2015 10:04:59

ztyper wrote:
As a die-hard Royal fan, I am going to point out that it's probably not the company's fault for having the 'y' slightly raised. It might have been damaged at one point during its long life; plenty of time for something to be knocked out of alignment.

Don't get me wrong. I am in love with my Royal 10, and I love its beautiful imperfections! The fact that it is still typing strong from 1927 without apparent benefit of a major overhaul is testimony to its fundamental quality of design and manufacture.

However, we must face the imperfections of our loved ones, and the more I look at this, the more I believe this is the way it came from the factory. If I raise the y side by side with its companions t and u...

... it seems to be alligned, and if anything, slightly lower (center typebar).

You can in fact see the rasied letters laying flat on its back - especially the capital:

And finally, if you look at the shape of the typebar, it would be easy to bend side-to-side but almost impossible to bend up and down without buckling the bar: there is no way to raise or lower letters. That sad truth is, ladies and gentlemen, that Ms. Royal entered life with this handicap in her y's. I rest my case.

But I actually like it all the more - it gives it a kind of loopy 1920's typewriter look, like a close up of a letter Betty Boop had just typed for her boss... which would then drift off into some kind of phantasmagoric dream suggesting drug use. It's not as if I'm planning to use it for business correspondence.

Baby, you were born this way, but I love you anyway!

Last edited by Repartee (18-10-2015 10:06:03)

**Posted by thetypewriterman** 18-10-2015 15:15:03

I cannot believe that the machine would have left the Royal factory with the raised letter 'Y'. Having looked at the close-up photo, it doesn't look as if the typeface (slug) has come off and been incompetently soldered back into place. The soldering appears to match the adjacent typebars, so is almost certainly a factory job. So what has happened ? I think that a typebar broke or the typeface came off and got lost - maybe 30 years ago when the machine would have been considered as a valueless old nail. As a quick and cheap fix, a typewriter mechanic swopped the whole typebar from a similar 'parts' machine without re-soldering the typeface to match the others. Remember that back then, the machine wasn't worth repairing properly because it would cost more than it was worth.

**Posted by TypewriterGuy** 18-10-2015 16:08:09

To me, it actually looks like the face is bent towards you. It looks like its bent outward. What do you think?

**Posted by Uwe** 18-10-2015 16:37:52

Repartee wrote:
To the eye it looked like several digits of this serial number had been deliberately ground out..

A seven digit serial number is normal for a Royal 10, so your theory about several digits having been ground off the machine is without basis.

Repartee wrote:
This may shed some light on why the "y" on the Royal is noticably raised about the line - simply poor quality control, in line with the serial number

Citing a raised 'Y' and an uneven serial number as examples of poor quality control is nonsensical. It’s not like you just brought that Royal 10 home from the neighbourhood Royal Store to discover that your brand new typewriter had misaligned type. We’re talking about a mechanical machine that has had 80+ years of use and undoubtedly managed to survive many attempted repairs by its ham-fisted owners. It’s unrealistic to expect that your Royal 10 in its current condition is representative of how the machine performed or its type was aligned when it was new. The type alignment of a new machine was work that was performed by hand, and it was heavily scrutinized process. Along with the typewriter’s final inspection (which verified the type alignment and may have also involved tweaking it if necessary) took close to four hours to complete on the Royal assembly line. In other words, there no way that a Royal standard would have left the factory with such a glaring alignment issue. There are numerous things that can cause a type alignment issue, all of them realities of day-to-day use that can damage any typewriter - regardless of its manufacturer. Given the relatively high cost of such a machine when it was new, and fierce competition between the manufacturers for customers, none of the major brands could afford to release a machine that could be accused of having poor quality control.

Repartee wrote:
if you look at the shape of the typebar, it would be easy to bend side-to-side but almost impossible to bend up and down without buckling the bar: there is no way to raise or lower letters.

That's simply not true. Professional type alignment involves the use of specialty tools - I've read that as many as 20 different types existed - that can effectively lengthen or shorten a typebar to correct letters that are high or low. I'd suggest reading up on type alignment techniques.