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1952 Royal HH Serial # HHP-4963906 1952 Royal HH typewriter, Serial # HHP-4963906 Brandon T's 1952 Royal HH typewriter. 2025-08-09 From the Virtual Typewriter Collection of Brandon T: 1952 Royal HH Serial # HHP-4963906 This HHP-prefixed Royal HH was the first one that managed to git me with the typewriter virus.

It's corroded, dusty, rusted, and doesn't even have an exclamation mark in the typeface (seriously!), but for a writing and mechanically-inclined antiquarian like me, all it had to do to win was... sit on the shelf at the thrift store and cost $8. Everything about it said "American history and craftsmanship of an era long gone". It looked like it could have fallen out of the screen from an episode of M*A*S*H, or one of my grandparent's stories after WW2 (correct on both accounts, given it's an early 1950s era model). It looked like one big chunk of history I could pick up and hold.

I drove 30 min back the next day just for it. Boy, did I NOT know what I was getting myself into.

This Royal is obviously in dire need of serious cleaning and some restoration work, but it appears to be fully complete mechanically. I was able to get it to type enough for a typeface sample without losing blood or my will to live and love, so there is some hope for it.

Right now, given its condition, this is a display piece awaiting restoration. But I am planning on getting it cleaned up at some point - it's pretty close to being functional, and I'm not after spotless. The age and patina is part of the charm to me.

Update: I've done some digging and this is a 1952 production HH, with the Pica typeface size (thus the P in HHP, as opposed to the slightly smaller Elite size in the HHE version).

1952 Royal HH #HHP-4963906

Status: My Collection
Hunter: Brandon T (GarageBay9)
Created: 08-08-2025 at 08:34PM
Last Edit: 08-09-2025 at 12:37PM

Description Hunter 3 Photos 0 Likes  Find on Ebay #AD  Find on Etsy #AD

Description:

This HHP-prefixed Royal HH was the first one that managed to git me with the typewriter virus.

It's corroded, dusty, rusted, and doesn't even have an exclamation mark in the typeface (seriously!), but for a writing and mechanically-inclined antiquarian like me, all it had to do to win was... sit on the shelf at the thrift store and cost $8. Everything about it said "American history and craftsmanship of an era long gone". It looked like it could have fallen out of the screen from an episode of M*A*S*H, or one of my grandparent's stories after WW2 (correct on both accounts, given it's an early 1950s era model). It looked like one big chunk of history I could pick up and hold.

I drove 30 min back the next day just for it. Boy, did I NOT know what I was getting myself into.

This Royal is obviously in dire need of serious cleaning and some restoration work, but it appears to be fully complete mechanically. I was able to get it to type enough for a typeface sample without losing blood or my will to live and love, so there is some hope for it.

Right now, given its condition, this is a display piece awaiting restoration. But I am planning on getting it cleaned up at some point - it's pretty close to being functional, and I'm not after spotless. The age and patina is part of the charm to me.

Update: I've done some digging and this is a 1952 production HH, with the Pica typeface size (thus the P in HHP, as opposed to the slightly smaller Elite size in the HHE version).

Typeface Specimen:

Photos:

About 75 years of grime and dust that need to come out, but everything is there.
About 75 years of grime and dust that need to come out, but everything is there.

I'm drawn to these machines because they're such powerful markers of history. They're not just products of their time that look like their era, they witnessed and helped record it too - even if it was just a small or mundane piece. Maybe it was business records, or government documents. Maybe it was medical notes. Was it someones homework? Did they pass? Love letters? Or a yearning writer's great dream of a novel that may or may not have ever been finished? Sometimes it's fascinating to just touch these beautiful machines of levers and clockwork and springs and switches and know that whatever happened, however it turned out in the end, this was there for it all.
I'm drawn to these machines because they're such powerful markers of history. They're not just products of their time that look like their era, they witnessed and helped record it too - even if it was just a small or mundane piece. Maybe it was business records, or government documents. Maybe it was medical notes. Was it someones homework? Did they pass? Love letters? Or a yearning writer's great dream of a novel that may or may not have ever been finished? Sometimes it's fascinating to just touch these beautiful machines of levers and clockwork and springs and switches and know that whatever happened, however it turned out in the end, this was there for it all.

Ah, there we are. It was gunked up with dust, and I missed this on the first pass until Mr. Air Compressor got involved.
Ah, there we are. It was gunked up with dust, and I missed this on the first pass until Mr. Air Compressor got involved.

Hunter: Brandon T (GarageBay9)

Brandon T's Typewriter Galleries [ My Collection ] [ My Sightings ]

Status: Typewriter Hunter
Points: 28

Somewhere deep in the northwestern Cascade Mountains, deep in the back behind 3D printers, computer parts, vintage airplane artifacts, thousands of books, and some potentially sentient blackberry vines, is a person who has been accused of bearing a suspicious resemblance to Sasquatch but has not yet found precisely who leaked that information.

I did not start collecting typewriters. It just happened. I'm told this is normal, and possibly the result of exposure to typewriter ink. I have promised the smarter half of my marriage that I am not going to get any more typewriters; we're out of room in the house.

...on second thought, I don't really NEED to sleep LYING DOWN, now, do I? That seems like a profligate waste of space...


RESEARCH NOTE: When researching the Royal HH on a computer with lots of screen real estate, you may find that launching the Royal Serial Number page and the Royal HH By Model/Year/Serial page in new browser windows can give you interesting perspectives on changes throughout the model series.

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