Silver Reed: Difference between revisions

Silver Seiko Ltd. is a Japanese company founded in 1952,^[1] widely known for its knitting machines and typewriters. The company, last formally headquartered in Shinjuku, Tokyo until its 2011 demise, is unrelated to the Seiko Group (timepiece technology).

The company initially formed as Marukoshi Knitting Machines Ltd^[3] — subsequently changing its name and becoming more widely known as Silver Seiko Ltd, marketing its products under the Silver Reed brand name. The company began manufacturing a line of personal manual typewriters under the Silver Reed brand, in 1966,^[1] working with the leading industrial design firm, GK-Design Group.^[4]

In a branding arrangment with Litton Industries, Silver Seiko enjoyed enormous success in the United States, especially marketing its range of small metal-bodied ultra-portables under the Royal brand, especially as the rebadged Royal Mariner. Litton ended the arrangement in 1974, turned to Nakajima for its typewriters, and Silver Seiko in turn sold the tooling for its metal-bodied Silverette-style modelsts to Dong-Ah Precisions of Korea.ref name="littonsale>{{cite web

|title        = Oh Brother! Japanese Portable Typewriters
|publisher    = Etcetera Journal of the Early Typewriters Collectors Association, Winter 2018/2019
|author       = Robert Messenger
|date         = June, 2013
|url          = https://safe.menlosecurity.com/doc/docview/viewer/docNAB305A6ACBD35fa1234e6471d23e063cb5cdca6a69c81dcdc7e76f389e24052f0599a519a876</ref>

the company expanded to electric and electronic models, forming its Silver Seiko America subsidiary in 1977, headquartered in Torrence, California,^[1] with a sales volume of $10 million during its first year and projections of $40 million in sales by 1979 and $100 million by 1981.^[1]

Silver Seiko's worldwide sales reached $110M by 1979, when the company manufactured 40,000 typewriters per month.^[5]

By 1984, the company had complemented its line of manual typewriters with electric and electronic models ranging from personal to high-end office markets, developing subsidiaries worldwide. In 1986, Silver Seiko brought to market a $350 hand-held copier, marketed as "Porta Copy," that could scan and print a 3 1/4" wide, continuous thermal paper scan.^[6]

With the advent of the digital revolution, the market for the company's core products shrank precipitously. Sales peaked at approximately 35.7 billion yen ($1.3B, 2023) in the fiscal year ending March 1985, and declined annually until Silver Seiko declared bankruptcy in 2011 — with approximately 300 employees and 58 independent contractors (as of March 31, 2010).^[7] Silver Seiko was ultimately taken over by Lead Technos Co., Ltd. and Kashiwazaki US Tech Co., Ltd., newly established through a company split in 2011.

The company manufactured typewriters and marketed them three ways: under their own Silver Reed label;^[5] as re-branded products for other typewriter companies (e.g., for Litton Industries' Royal brand); and rebranded under numerous private labels — to mass market retailers.

Silver Seiko typewriters were initially manual models and subsequently electric, electronic and daisy wheel variants. In the late 1970s, the company developed the 235-C (1979) and 255-C (1981). These were direct competitors to the IBM Selectric, an office typewriter that had at the time captured nearly 75%^[5] of an $850M market ($3.5B, 2023).^[5] The Silver Seiko model used a 'golf ball' head and ribbon interchangable with the Selectric, but used microprocessors rather than the Selectric's difficult-to-service tilt and rotate tapes.^[1] Along with its two 'golf ball' models, the company entered the electronic printer and typewriter market with its EX- series of daisy wheel office (EX-50, 55, 66, 77, 78) and compact (EX-42, 43N, 44) electronic typewriters (1982-1984) — advertising widely, notably with the celebrity endorsement of Martina Navratilova.^[8][9]

In the 1960s and 1970s, Silver Seiko, along with Japanese companies Brother Industries and Nakajima, were frequent targets of antidumping campaigns in the United States and Europe — for their low-priced manual typewriters.^[10]

The Silver Reed Silverette is a prominent model of Silver Seiko's core line of affordable ultra-portable manual typewriters, weighing just over 10 lbs. The company marketed innumerable variations on this same platform and identical exterior styling, from the early 1960s to early 1970s.

Noted typewriter authority and collector, Theodore 'Ted' Munk,^[11] cited the Royal Mercury (a prominent rebadged variant of the Silverette) as perhaps the one typewriter he would keep if he could keep only one.^[12] Noted typewriter authority and Youtube channeler, Joe Van Cleave, also regularly uses a Royal Mercury.^[13] Author Ray Bradbury used a Silver Seiko ultra-portable, as did authors Nick Cave (a Royal Mercury variant) and Jonathan Franzen.^[14]

Most Silverette variations featured metal bodywork (including a removable metal bottom plate); 10" carriage to accommodate standard business-size envelopes, touch-set margins, calibrated paper bail without rollers, card holders, tilt-away carriage-shift (vs. basket-shift or full carriage-shift), right margin bell — and an ABS plastic "snap-over" lid/cover with built-in carrying handle. The Silverette itself was one of the company's least-equipped models of the line, though it was often marketed in bright, saturated colors.^[15]

The machine is of the "flat" type, with an overall height of roughly 85 mm (3.35"). The keyboard, as distinct from upright desktop designs, had key levers mounted on four dowels held by a dowel plate at front — a configuration commonly seen in other portable or ultra-portable models, including those by Nakajima, Consul of (then) Czechoslovakia and the Olivetti 32.^[16]

Silver Reed offered numerous other variations of its Silverette model, with added (or deleted) features varying per model: 1, 1 1/2, 2 line spacing, paper support, line drawing aperture, two-color ribbon settings, stencil cutter, automatic ribbon reverse, two-position touch sensitivity regulator, back space key, margin release key, shift key at each side, shift lock key, jamb-release key,^[4] Pica (10 cpi) or Elite (12 cpi) typefaces, five-year manufacturer's parts defect warranty (Royal), #1 or 0 key, two-color or single color ribbon capability, tabulation or "speed spacer" functionality.

The company marketed its Silverette variants worldwide, each with subtle feature inclusions and deletions:

• under its own model names, including: the Silverette, Silver Reed 100, Sovereign Compact 720, SR-200, 280 Deluxe, 700, 780, Leader, Leader II and Speedwriter 7200.
• prominently and widely in the United States as the Royal Mercury and worldwide as numerous other rebadged variants for what had been once-leading, independent typewriter companies, including Royal (Signet, Jet, Mariner, Companion, Educator, Mustang, Signet, Tab-O-matic)^[4], Imperial Tab-o-matic and Underwood 255.
• under numerous private label brands for retail outlets with otherwise no specific connection to typewriters, including: the Sears Achiever 600, Imtex S300, Maedi 2000, Eaton 400 (for the Eaton's department store), Wilding TW100/TW200, Boot's PT400, Torpedo Student 42, Viscount and Welco S100.

• October 1952: Marukoshi Knitting Machinery Co., Ltd. founded in Kamitakaido, Suginami-ku, Tokyo
• May 1955: Company name changed to Silver Knitting Machine Manufacturing Co., Ltd.
• January 1964: Silver Knitting Machine Co., Ltd. merged with Silver Knitting Machine Manufacturing Co., Ltd. and Silver Knitting Machine Sales Co., Ltd. and Headquarters relocated to Kodaira City, Tokyo.
• March 1964: Listed on the second section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
• June 1967: Company name changed to Silver Seiko Ltd.
• April 1984: Company merged with Silver Office Machine Sales Co., Ltd.
• September 1984: Listed on the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
• October 1992: Kodaira factory closed
• June 1993: Head office moved to Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo
• May 27, 2010: Company announces name change to "Nupapa"
• October 1, 2010: The company name change was withdrawn in the IR announced on June 9
• December 28, 2010: Silver Seiko fails to meet its debts for the second time. Under Japan's commercial code, a company is considered bankrupt when it fails to meet debt or promissory-note payments twice within six months.^[17] In response, the Tokyo Stock Exchange designated Silver Seiko shares as stocks for delisting on the same day, delisting them on January 29, 2011
• September 27, 2011: Applied to the Tokyo District Court for application of the Civil Rehabilitation Act, with total debts of approximately 1,2M yen ($8M, 2023).
• December 27, 2011: Decision to abolish rehabilitation proceedings and commence bankruptcy.

By the time of its dissolution, Silver Seiko had diversified to include a range of products including: printer enlargers, shredders, paper folding machines, reduced hydrogen water generators, ozone generators, garbage disposal devices, air cleaners, pitching machines, knitting machines, sewing machines, vacuum cleaners, a simple breast cancer testing device and word processors.^[7]