A black L.C. Smith Super-Saver manual desktop typewritter with Latin alphabet keys. The keys have a black baclground with white lettering. LC Smith is printed in white on the front of the typewriter. Super-Speed is written on the paper feed. The paper feed ha smultiple rulers on it. The space bar is cracked in half. Some of the letters on the keys are tilted or upside down. Found in the same box as part of the Barbatsuly Collection.

The Super-Speed got a makeover in late 1939, just 2 1/2 years after coming onto the market. Though always seemingly ahead of the design curve with their protables, Smith-Corona lagged a bit when it came to its desktops. The original Super-Speed still strongly resembled the L.C. Smith body style begun in 1904, and the L.C. Smith & Bros company stubbornly clung to its naming convention of "L.C. Smith" on standards and "Corona" on portables until after WWII, when all models adopted the Smith-Corona badge.

This version of the Super-Speed belongs more to the '30s than the '40s, yet it continued into the early 1950s. The final version, probably introduced late '40 or early '50, was available in tan as well as black, and featured the same two-tone green keys as the rest of S-C's product line. A new model, the 1951 6A, was a partially new design, the main alteration being the change to a slotted segment. Up until then, Super-Speeds still operated with the individually ball-bearinged typebars that had been used in L.C. Smiths for almost half a century. It's unclear whether the Super-Speed line was completely discontinued in 1951 or if it continued to be manufactured on a limited basis in parallel with the 6A, 7A and 88 lines.

Smith Corona is a US manufacturer of thermal labels, direct thermal labels, and thermal ribbons used in warehouses for primarily barcode labels. Once a large U.S. typewriter and mechanical calculator manufacturer, it expanded aggressively during the 1960s to become a broad-based industrial conglomerate whose products extended to paints, foods, and paper. The mechanical calculator sector was wiped out in the early 1970s by the production of cheap electronic calculators, and the typewriter business collapsed in the mid-1980s due to the introduction of PC-based word processing. Its competitors were Brother, Olivetti, Adler, Olympia and IBM. In late 2010, Smith Corona entered the industrial ribbon and label market. The company no longer manufacturers typewriters or calculators, but does manufacture large quantities of barcode and shipping labels and thermal ribbons used in thermal transfer printers. Their facility is in Cleveland, OH. Smith Corona now competes with distributors of Zebra Technologies supplies, packaging companies like Uline and various other private companies.

The Smith Premier Typewriter Company was established in 1886 by brothers; Lyman Cornelius Smith, Wilbert Smith, Monroe C. Smith and Hurlbut Smith who were born in Lisle, New York. Eldest brother, Leroy Smith, invented the Peerless typewriter in 1891, which "greatly resembled" the Smith-Premier. It had the same double keyboard with 76 characters and also had "blind type" so the typist could not see what was being printed.

During 1893, Smith joined with the Union Typewriter Company, a trust in Syracuse which included rival firms Remington, Caligraph, Densmore and Yost. Not long after, Union took action and blocked the Smith Premier Typewriter Company from using the new front strike design, which allowed typists to see the paper as they typed. As a result, the Smith brothers quit in 1903 and founded L. C. Smith & Bros. Typewriter Company. The new company soon released the "L.C. Smith & Bros. Model No. 2", which was an odd beginning because, a full year later, they released the "L.C. Smith & Bros. Model No. 1." Carl Gabrielson was the inventor of both No. 1 and No. 2 models. In 1906, the Rose Typewriter Company of New York City marketed the first successful portable typewriter. They were "bought out" by Smith in 1909 and the company moved upstate to Groton, New York. At that time, the firm was renamed Standard Typewriter Company.

To promote usage of the typewriter, the company began by offering typing services at the company headquarters located at the corner of East Genesee and Washington streets in Syracuse. An advertisement on December 27, 1904, for Smith Premier typewriters, touted the Employee Department which offered services such as finding a "competent stenographer (male or female) to operate any make of machine." The company advertised they could provide the services promptly, saving clients time and trouble and "examining" all applicants. Operators could perform duties such as stenographer, typewriter, telegrapher and bookkeeper.

With the success of their Corona model in 1914, Standard Typewriter Company was renamed again and became the Corona Typewriter Company. Smith Corona was created when L. C. Smith & Bros. united with Corona Typewriter in 1926, with L. C. Smith & Bros. making office typewriters and Corona Typewriter making portables.

After the war, the company concentrated on making its typewriters more convenient and efficient for use in business offices. Typewriter sales peaked after World War II; in response to a demand for typewriters capable of faster output, Smith Corona introduced electric typewriters in 1955. Electric portables, intended for traveling writers and business people, but later widely purchased for general home use, were introduced in 1957. The new portable electric typewriters would become an essential tool for generations of U.S. high school and college students.

In a diversification move into the wider office technology sector, Smith Corona purchased the Kleinschmidt Corporation in 1956 and Marchant Calculator in 1958, changing its corporate name to Smith-Corona Marchant Inc.. Also in 1958, Smith Corona acquired British Typewriters, Ltd. of West Bromwich, England, a company that made small portable typewriters. The company invented the typewriter power carriage return in 1960, the same year it moved from Syracuse to Cortland, New York and opened new corporate headquarters on Park Avenue in New York City. 1960 also saw the company's first foray into the photocopier business with the Vivicopy range of machines, also the accounting machinery market with a range of punch card and tape products manufactured for it in Germany by Keinzle. Still on the acquisition trail, in 1961 SCM acquired the St. Louis Microstatic Company this merger giving rise to the Model 33 Electrostatic Copier which went on sale in April 1962. Thus by the mid-1960s SCM had become a major supplier to the office equipment market, offering photocopiers, typewriters and calculating machines.

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