Cris' site on antique mechanical four-species calculators
This is a website for showing my collection of antique calculators. In due time pictures of my entire collection will be posted, for now, it's just bits and pieces.
My collection started more or less by accident, when I spotted a Remington Rand adding machine at a flea market in 2001. When the price turned out to be 5 EUR, I couldn't resist.
The obligatory web search turned up some information on the machine's year of manufacture (1949), and the fact that it blocked necessitated opening it up and having a look at the mechanism for a good clean and lube.
I was not too impressed with the fact it could only add and subtract, and some more searching on the web turned up some marvelous machines which could perform all four arithmetical operations.
Dreaming started on how it would be interesting to own a machine of every common operating principle - pinwheels, stepped drums, and ratchet wheel.
I found a Schubert pinwheel machine a few months later on another flea market, which again needed cleaning, oiling and adjustment.
And then I took the main step in a collector's life - "crossing the Rubicon", so to say: I typed in "calculator" in the search box on ebay.
From there on the collection has only grown, until it is now well over a 100 machines, and I need to be selective in what I buy because of space limitations.
This website is intended to show the collection and share some of the stories associated with it.
Enjoy!
Also visit the virtual BLM's 2008 BRUNSVIGA Expo
