Salter Standard (1910)

Salter Standard Model 10
 
Year of production:  1910
 
Company: George Salter & Co. , West Bromwich , Britain 
 
Serial no. 22302
 
In October 1896 Salter opened new London headquarters at 7 Newgate Street. The No 6 model came out in 1900, the No 7 in 1907, the No 9 (wide carriage) in 1908 and No 10 in 1910. Twelve hundred Salters were sold in one order alone, to Germany in 1909. But until there was a complete change in design to a visible writer in 1913, it is estimated that only 22,000 downstrike Salters were ever made. 
 
We also have a No. 7 and a No. 9 in stock
 
History:
 
George Salter and Co Ltd of West Bromwich had been around as a highly successful operation making valve springs, spring balances and weighing machines since the latter part of the 18th Century. As Typewriter Topics said in 1923, “The English workmanship as exemplified in the Salter typewriter has always been excellent ...” - what a difference an established plant made! 
 
The Salter company had been started by brothers Richard and William Salter in 1760 to make springs and pocket steelyards (spring balances) in a cottage in Bilston. In 1770 they moved to West Bromwich. The company became George Salter & Co in 1824 when William’s son took over the business. Salter springs were used in Stephenson's Rocket, an 1829 steam locomotive.
 
The early Salter typewriters were designed by James Samuel Foley (1854-), a mechanical engineer who was born in Cheshire, Connecticut, south of the home of American typewriters, Hartford. Foley moved to England in 1889 and finally settled and married in West Bromwich. Foley had first patented printing devices and typewriters in 1889, and his original Salter design of 1892 was his alone (while still in London) and unassigned. It did him little long-term good to sell the rights to Salter, as he went bankrupt in 1915 and returned to the US the next year.
 
Also, Salter production ended in 1923, following a five-year break because of World War I. The family legend dates the first Salter typewriter, the Salter 5, to 1895, but it did not appear until the following year, at a cost of eight guineas. (Many historians say the first Salter was made in 1892; the actual year was 1896.)