Smith-Corona Manual Portable Silent Super

Circa 1957

"one of the best portable typewriters produced by Smith-Corona"

The Silent Super was renowned for its smooth, fast action and sound-dampening insulation. It was a popular 5-Series line (which included the Sterling and Silent models) serving as the high-end, top-tier model known for its relatively quiet "silent" (muted), reliability, heavy-duty and stylish design. The Silent Super was known for its "pretty" or "shiny" aesthetics.

Smith-Corona is credited with some "retro curves and "art deco aesthetics" that were "designed by" people in the company's engineering department. The Silent Super is considered to have strong Art Deco and streamlined, industrial design influences. Key features such as it's "low-slung" curves, racing stripes on the hood and overall sleek, modern silhousette made it a popular example of the era's design. Therefore, the Silent Super is often associated with the late Art Deco or Art Moderne period with often a matte or crinkle-paint finish. 

While some earlier 1930s machines, like the Remington 5, are more commonly cited for classic "piano black" Art Deco styling, the Smith-Corona Silent Super represents a 1950s evolution of that trend.

The Smith-Corona Super Silent was primarily offered in five distinct pastel and standard colors starting around 1957.  The most notable colors were Alpine Blue, Seafoam Green, Coral Pink, Desert Sand and Sapphire Gray/Grey.  Early models typically featured green keys though later the colored models transitioned to white keys.  

The Silent Super is often celebrated as a masterpiece of manual portable design. It was a mid-sized, heavy duty "workhorse" designed to provide the full keyboard experience.  It was renowed for its speed.  It was designed by the company's engineering team in Groton, New York which included design engineer, Joseph P. Barkdoll and released in the post-WWII "baby boomer" era.

Barkdoll was a long-serving Smith-Corona design engineer.  He also had much to do with the brilliant line of typewriters introduced by Smith-Corona at Christmas 1949.  These included the Clipper, Sterling and the Silent-Super.  Barkdoll was born in Ohio April 1895 and began work for L. C Smith-Corona in the late 1920s and continued to patent designs for the company until 1969. During his 30 years of service to Smith-Corona, Barkdoll assigned at least 23 patents to the company.

The Smith-Corona Silent-Super is a front-strike, segment-shift typewriter with a light touh and fast action due to its "super speed escapement".  It features an "88-character full keyboard", including the number "1" key which was not always found on typewriters.  The keys were made of an early form of plastic called "Bakelite.*  The machine also had a ribbon selector of black, red and stencil settings, a margin release switch, a backspace button and a manual ribbon reverse switch.  The typewriter weighed 13 pounds.  It was 11.5 inches wide, 12.5 inches deep and 4.75 inches tall. 

*Bakelite was the early form of plastic developed in 1907 by Belgian chemist, Leo Baekeland in Yonkers, NY.  It was patented on December 7, 1909.  As the first fully synthetic plastic, it was used for durable, heat-resistant items like telephones, radios and jewelry often dubbed "the material of a thousand uses". The uses included .. typewriter keys.  Bakelite was commonly used for typewriter keys from the 1930s through the 1950s and typically had a solid, opaque appearance compared to earlier glass-covered keys. The keys were known for having a unique "wood-like" sound when tapped. 

Smith-Corona was founded in 1886 by the Smith brothers.  Smith-Corona became a dominant American typewriter manufacturer, famous for portable models.  Its origin from 1886 into the 1900s was founded by the Smith Premier Typewriter Company in Syracuse, New York by brothers Lyman Cornelius, Wilbert, Monroe and Hurlbut Smith.  In 1926, L.C. Smith & Brothers merged with the Corona Typewriter Company (founded in 1909) forming the L. C. Smith & Corona Typewriter Company and eventually becoming Smith-Corona. They ushered in the typewriter craze after WWII, when it produced the world's first portable manual typewriter. 

"no down payment .. convenient terms"

$121. 58 (incl. Fed. tax)

"To Smith-Corona with love .. best friend a busy girl ever had."

Natalie Wood

Sidenote:  In my research for this featured story I came upon the word QWERTY keyboard and now know what it is referring to in typewriter language. The QWERTY keyboard is the standard English-language typewriter and computer keyboard layout, named for the first six letters in the top-left letter row.  Patented in 1878, it was designed for early typewriters to reduce mechanical jams by separating frequently used letter combinations.  It prevented the mechanical arms of typewriters from colliding and locking up. Other regions used modified layouts, such as QWERTZ (German) or AZERTY (French). Despite the development of more efficient layouts, QWERTY remains the standard due to user familiarity and widespread adoption. 

I received an alpine blue Silent-Super as a young girl going into high school though I don't have it today.  That's the sad news, but the good news is I found one on eBay in alpine blue and can now say I am the proud owner of my second Silent-Super, in life.