1962 Royal Empress #MCE 11-7409490
Status: My Collection
Hunter: Ted Snyder (tricosene)
Created: 04-12-2026 at 12:24PM
Last Edit: 04-12-2026 at 12:24PM
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Description:
“... a new and thrilling typing experience…” –Your New Royal
Features: Elite, fawn gray paint, segment shift
This Royal Empress came to me via Facebook Marketplace.
It lived in a basement or garage for a while alongside mice. The small rodents took an interest in it and gnawed on the right carriage knob. Perhaps they were trying to get it to advance and found the carriage return too heavy to use? They also defecated on the platen.
Typing on this is different from any of the other typewriters in my collection. This is the first one where typing felt–and sounded–familar. I don’t think that I’ve used an Empress before. Most of my experience in my youth is with Brother daisy wheel typewriters, so I think that’s what this feels and sounds like to me. The keys depress smoothly and, even at the highest touch setting, I don’t get a definite feel of the mechanical articulation, which is different from my other typewriters. And when the keyslug strikes, it makes more of a snapping noise, like I’m used to with a daisy wheel typewriter. On one hand, this is so easy to type on, it is amazing. On the other hand, I miss the mechanical feeling that I get with my Royal KMG and other typewriters.
Repairs / Replacements
The carriage return lever sagged enough to scrape the top of the ribbon cover. I took the old school approach and bent the metal to angle it up higher.
One of the ribbon spools had a decent amount of surface rust degrading the paint, so I sanded it off and repainted the spool. Note to self - next time use semi-gloss black, not matt.
The cover behind the platen has a dent in it and the piece of the body around the right margin was missing a nut and loose.
The ribbon reversal doesn’t seem to be working. I have more than one Royal standard with this same issue. I’ll probably just fix them all at once.
Typeface Specimen:
Hunter: Ted Snyder (tricosene)
Ted Snyder's Typewriter Galleries [ My Collection ] [ My Sightings ]
Status: Typewriter Hunter
Points: 51
Back in high school, my dad would bring home one of the office typewriters, a Brother daisy wheel with a built-in word processor, for me to use. That might be my first typewriter. I don't know what happened to it. I bought a Cannon Starwriter afterwards to take to college. Fast forward to 2025, and I started wondering if there could be benefits of using a typewriter in my writing routines.
Little did I know that typewriters have the ability to reproduce. A Remington Quiet Riter led to a Royal KMG and Underwood De Luxe Leader pair, and the process continued. Now I have a dozen.
RESEARCH NOTE: When researching the Royal Empress on a computer with lots of screen real estate, you may find that launching the Royal Serial Number page and the Royal Empress By Model/Year/Serial page in new browser windows can give you interesting perspectives on changes throughout the model series.
