The Acquisition of the Royal Safari

I mentioned in my previous post, i.e., my welcome post, that the title of this blog was inspired by the typewriter I got just the other day, a Royal Safari. That Royal is my first typewriter of the CE (Computer Era). All my other typewriters pretty much vanished with the appearance of the Apple Macintosh on the market. 

At any rate, I had recently become interested in typewriters again, after a 39-year absence, by a series of serendipitous happenings (which I will discuss in a later post), and I had decided to get more into it when I stumbled upon an Olivetti Lettera 22 on Ebay. It's a sign, I figured, so I placed a bid, "won" the auction, and awaited the typewriter's arrival. In the meanwhile, my wife went out one morning to check out an Estate Sale that she had read about in local what's happening sort of Facebook group. As my wife was exiting our truck to go check out what they had on offer (and from the looks of what was out front, it didn't promise to be much), I half-jokingly said, "See if they have any typewriters."

A few minutes later, I heard the tailgate of our truck open, and then heard a couple of thuds as she put whatever she had bought in. When she got back in the truck, I asked her what she had bought, and she said "I bought you a typewriter! A Royal. Only five bucks!"

Wow. $5 for a typewriter! Can't go wrong with that, I figured. I mean you read about people making great Typewriter finds for $25 or $35 dollars, but $5? Must be a piece of junk, I figured. Still, I couldn't wait to see what it was, so I didn't. I got out of the truck and took a look. I must admit to being surprised to see a 60s-ish looking machine in pretty much perfect condition. Pretty much not a scratch on it. It even came with its original case, about 20 sheets of old woodchip paper, a single sheet of carbon paper (I had forgotten about that stuff), and a pretty well-worn eraser - one of those round wheel type erasers with a green brush affixed to the end.  I couldn't wait to get my typewriter home to see what was wrong with it.

When we finally go home, I set the Safari on the dining room table, put in a sheet of the included paper, and, after figuring out how to reset the margins, started typing. So, what was wrong with it? Well, to my surprise, nothing. All of the keys worked. They went town, and they sprang back into place. No sticking, no problems. The carriage return did its job without issue, and the bell that rings as you near the end of a line, rang clear and true when it was supposed to. All I could think was "wow."

And so, I typed and typed, and my fingers hurt, and my typos were many. What I wrote for those first moments of truth was a bunch of nonsense for the most part (see for yourself at the end of the post, if you like), but all was good because I was really enjoying it. I was suddenly carried back to my Hollywood High School typing class with the numbers 28/7 (28 words per minute/7 mistakes) written in red at the top of most my typing time tests.  I suddenly remembered the typewriter shop that used to be in business in the arcade portion of the Spring Arcade Building in Downtown Los Angeles where I bought my own first typewriter during my senior year of high school. I even remembered the breakfast nook at home during those school days, where my mother's mighty IBM Model D took up one of the four spaces at the table as if it were my sibling. "Model D, could you pass the salt, please?"

It was the more sensorial things that hit the most. First there was that sound - that wonderful clickety clack, ding, scrunch, clickety clack, ding, scrunch that was one of the soundtracks of my youth. And then there was that surprisingly satisfying feeling of pulling the carriage return lever to advance to the next line and the left side of the page. I had forgotten how much I liked that, which is one of the reasons that I hated when my mother replaced her old Smith-Corona Portable Electric with an IBM Model D, which replaced the carriage return lever with an oversized key that just. . .well, killed the rhythm of typing and definitely took some of the fun, the stress relief if you will, out of the whole process. It also reminded me in very short order what hyphenation was all about. Ah, welcome back, Manual Carriage Return. It's good to see you again.

My wife tried the typewriter out later and typed up a storm, finding it a good feel, both as a machine and as something to do. She's now also excited, as am I, about going to one of the Type Ins that the Typewriter group up in Albuquerque (the ABQwerty Type Writer Society) holds a couple times a year.  I have the feeling that this Safari will end up being hers. That being the possible case, I hope the Olivetti that should be arriving in a few hours types nicely! 

Well, that all said, let me end this post with a few photos of the Safari for your enjoyment. Aloha!

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