SCM Corporation
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| Industry | Typewriter production (no longer), typewriter supplies, thermal transfer labels and ribbons |
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| Genre | typewriters, thermal label technology |
| Fate | Bankruptcy, Reinvented as thermal label and ribbon manufacturer |
| Founded | 1886 |
| Founder | Lyman, Wilbert, Monroe and Hurlbut Smith |
| Headquarters | Syracuse, New York, now Cleveland, Ohio, United States |
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Area served
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United States |
| Products | Typewriters, thermal transfer labels, thermal transfer ribbons, direct thermal labels |
| Owner | Private |
| Website | SmithCorona.com |
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.
Smith Corona did address this by manufacturing word processing typewriters such as PWP 1400 model. 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, Ohio. Smith Corona now competes with distributors of Zebra Technologies supplies, packaging companies like Uline and various other private companies.
The company originated in 1886, when the Smith Premier Typewriter Company was established by the brothers Lyman Cornelius Smith, Wilbert Smith, Monroe C. Smith and Hurlburt Smith. The brothers created the first machine to use both uppercase and lowercase letters. This was accomplished with a unique feature that made use of a double keyboard. The advertisements "cunningly boasted" that there was "a key for every character!"
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Wikipedia