Burkhardt E
This machine has joined the collection somewhere in the beginning of the year - and has been lingering since, because it was in dire need of a restoration. Now with summer holidays coming around, it was finally time to dig into it.
This machine was constructed at a time where Saxonia and Burkhardt (and Mühle & Sohn) had merged into the Vereinigte Glashütter Rechenmaschinenfabrik, in 1920. They continued making the Burkhardt C until 1926. Saxonia, in the mean time, had developed a dust-proof setting system already in 1908, with their little rotating levers that are famous for being used in the rolltop Saxonias, also evident in my Eureka.
This machine hails from the Burkhardt side of the spectrum - it is a Burkhardt E, with the push-button direction switching from the Burkhardt C, but with a newly developed dust-proof setting register, having levers that rotate around a horizontal axis instead of vertical as in the Saxonia. For all intents and purposes it looks the same as the old system, apart from the fact that the levers have a very firm clicking action, and are under spring load, which makes them jump back down at the push of a button. When down, the slit in the top plate is covered from below by a dust cover.
They were made from 1926 to 1927, after which they received tens’ carry in the counting register as well, and associated with that also a different direction setting mechanism with indicators.
On this particular machine, the + / - switches have been exchanged for ones from a different machine, and they were adapted to fit over the rectangular stubs. I still don’t know what colour the buttons had originally.
It had received a horrible paint job on the top plate, seemingly done with asphalt or something. Oh the horror!
Luckily, some solvent based paint remover took it right back off without harming the older, more resilient paint underneath, which could be recovered. The carriage thankfully was spared the pitch-treatment.
The entire setting register was sticky and stiff, but had to be disassembled anyway for cleaning the top plate, as it is part of it.
Some cleaning and reassembly later, I had a nicely working setting register.
Next up was disassembly of the carriage for cleaning. Also this was finished succesfully. Then only the case still had to be cleaned up.
Reassembly required a moderate amount of witchcraft. I’m sure they had techniques at the factory for getting this very cumbersome setting register correctly over the sliding gears it needs to operate, but I have not rediscovered them. Some blue language was used, and finally I had to disassemble everything again because all the setting levers worked, but the item counter was misassembled...
The finished machine has lots of interesting features. It is angled steeper than older machines, and the case is higher than usual to accommodate the clearing mechanism for the input. The dustproof setting register is interesting, so is the pushbutton direction change, the very Saxonia carriage locking device that can also be switched off incase a problem occurs mid-calculation that blocks the machine, and it has an item counter labeled “P” (for Postenzahler).
The cardboard on the bottom slides out to reveal the underside of the mechanism
The machine works very smoothly and easily, and also the case is very pretty, with the silver lettering bordered in blue, and the big Burkhardt logo on the back.
It was apparently maintained by Johann Hosbach in what I suppose is Dortmund. Surprisingly, there’s an entry in the trade register - HRA 7279. The firm Joh. Hosbach Büromaschinen o.H.G. was established on Sept. 7 1938.
Some beauty shots:
Here is a video of the machine in operation: