Smith-Corona
Smith-Corona, also known as Standard Folding, Corona Typewriter Co., L. C. Smith and Brothers, L. C. Smith and Corona, and Smith-Corona Marchant, was and is one of the most illustrious typewriter companies to exist.
__As Standard Folding__
In 1906, the Standard Folding Type-Bar Typewriter Co. is established. Engineer Frank Rose created a folding machine that would fold in half, making it a truly portable machine to compete with the one other lightweight model on the market: the Blickensderfer. Having typebars and a more conventional layout, the design had potential. Some 12 000 Standard Foldings were made, and they are a rather rare and desirable machine today. Eventually, the Standard Folding would be rebranded into one of the most popular machines to ever have existed, the Corona 3.
__As Corona__
In 1909, the Standard Folding company was acquired by an investor and moved to Groton, N.Y. In 1912, after a variety of edits had been made to the basic Standard Folding design, it was redesigned and marketed as the Corona 3. This new machine saw great success. A variant, the "3 Special", was introduced in the early 1920s; it featured right-hand shift keys and came in colors like red, blue, and green, or gold inlays on black.
Eventually, the folding 3-bank Coronas were superseded by the Corona 4, a slightly larger machine retaining the distinctive curves of the 3, but adopting a 4-bank standard keyboard. The 3 remained in production until 1941, however, outlasting the 4.
__L.C. Smith and Bros.__
As the Corona typewriter company was rapidly growing, L.C. Smith and Brothers had been making standard office typewriters. Due to legal issues, the former inventors of the Smith Premier had started a new company, and created a new standard that used ball-bearings in the type arms, rather than a conventional segment. Based out of Syracuse, N.Y., the L.C. Smith was a very popular standard and continued to be produced after the L.C. Smith and Corona merger.
__As Smith-Corona__
In 1925, L.C. Smith and Bros. merged with the Corona Typewriter Co. to create Smith-Corona, formally L. C. Smith and Corona Typewriters Inc.
