There is a wealth of information on the interwebs about most brands of popular typewriters. But it can be difficult to find much material on the models less-revered by the typospherians. When I bought this Silver Reed 150 ‘Tabulator’, it was largely due to the long-trusted description: ‘one lady owner from new’, with the added bonus bracket: ‘(my mum)’. That, and it’s shinier than a Jimmy Saville shell suit.

It arrived with the original protective plastic cover slotted above the hammers, which I’m keeping to cover up its vital organs when not in use. On a whim I bought it with the assumption that Silver Seiko Co, Ltd who make the typer were a branch of the Seiko Watch Company. As it turns out I was wrong on that count. As is said in the car industry: the Japanese are the Germans of Asia where manufacture is concerned, and this Dale Winton’s face with type keys seems built like a tank. So, I’m not worried.

Silver Seiko, after a little research turns out, started life similar to its major Japanese competitor, Brother. It began as Marukoshi Knitting Machines, Ltd. in 1952, before appeasing the European market in 1955 by swapping out ‘Marukoshi’ for Silver, and putting away the knitting needles in 1967 to form Silver Seiko Co, Ltd. Since then Silver dipped there hand into as many businesses as possible, building paper folding machines, water purifying equipment, ozone gas generators; and dabbling in life insurance, real estate, brokerage. That gives some reassurance, right? If its nearest relative is the long-withstood ‘over 10 million sold’ Brother Kondo design spanning 30+ years and the company went on to put prices on the average man’s life and purify their water, a humble Silver Reed typewriter should be a belter.

It is. Definitely a belter with the noise it throws out. I enjoy the hammering snap it makes. Everything feels solid, things are simple like the ribbon reverse which is just a case of flipping two arms that hold the spools. But there is no attempt at ‘insulating’ the thing from noise. I live and work in a boarding school and the house parent living nearest my flat HATES this thing. The kids love it, but the older woman that is otherwise deaf to a full-on fist fight seethes at it. Each time I’m tapping I hear a theatrical sigh of indignation from next door. The Silver gets all the more use for it, and the sighs add to the rhythm you get into when typing.

It seems even in 1977 the Silver company bypassed the craze for ‘Silent’ models that were produced in America and Europe as early as the 30s. It adds to the experience, requiring a bottle of codeine to battle the inevitable migraine – something nice and Beatnik about it… ‘the typewriter is holy…’ (totes posing with a Ginsberg quote). Kerouac used a desktop Underwood; Burroughs: various Antares, Hermes Rocket; Ginsberg, a Remington #5, and enough Benzedrine to bring down Shia LeBeouf (incidentally, doesn’t his name translate as ‘Shia The Beef’?).

Digressions. For £30.00 all in, I got a good machine in unused condition with the added charm of shouting about its tabulator function (which had been around for 40-50 years at the time). If it had been a pre-war Underwood it would be a collectors wet dream, alas it is not.

I hope this goes some way to helping anyone taking a punt on those hundreds of Silverettes on auction sites. As I said, there doesn’t seem to be a big fanfare for these machines; neither does there seem to be a big downside to them. They aren’t Gromas or Speedline Smith-Coronas but it is another dependable bulletproof Japanese typewriter.