"It's the very best day ever," the little one screamed as the new-to-them find came into view. "Listen to this," they added banging ever so confidently on the aged keys with a gusto that I remembered even if my own typing memories are seared into the case of my baby blue electric version that wrote many a paper and earned degrees after valiantly preserving a few theses for posterity.
I found myself quickly doing a search this Royal could not have imagined, and found is a community savoring these dinosaurs. You can even get new ink ribbons in one day from Amazon! There are also old manuals entirely online as well as You Tube videos detailing repairs of these relics. I found the Royal Quiet Deluxe was made from 1930 to 1959 and it was the first with a "magic margin!" Its cost of $80 seventy-five years ago (nearly $1000 today). Earnest Hemingway and Ian Fleming used these typewriters to do their magic.
There was a familiar ding at the end of each and every row from this thrift-store-find even after many decades of sitting in a basement! I know Ken (whose name is emblazoned on the case) would be thrilled to know that his once very special typewriter has found a retirement job on the desk of someone weaned on laptops.
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