Monopol n° 362
Bought at auction, this machine is a true dinosaur among mechanical calculators, dating back to a time when even the arrangement of registers and the location of the carriage and the crank handle had not been pinned down - the Brunsviga B was its direct competitor when it came out in 1896, but back then the machine, designed by Küttner and Heinitz (see the articles in HBW 99 by Martin Reese and Daniel Verhoeven, and in HBW 79 by Jörg Thien), did have the pinwheel cylinder at the top and the carriage in front - but the operating crank was on the left. The other big innovation was tens' carry in the counter register for the "duplex" machines - a trick only learnt by the Triumphator machines in 1904. It was at the changeover of the production to Chemnitz and the firm Salzer, also in 1904, that the machine was entirely redesigned and the carriage was now on top, with the setting register/pinwheel cylinder in the front. Salzer soon became Schubert & Salzer, and this is what is proudly written on the front of the machine.
but already this machine, now 21kg in weight, and with axial pinwheels, had outstayed its welcome, and had long been surpassed by the continuous innovations by the Brunsviga factory and others.
The lights went out in the calculator part of the factory for the final time in 1914.
This particular machine is serial number 362 in the second series.
It should be a Duplex machine - but it turns out that it is actually a Simplex - without tens' carry in the counter. That would have made it even less useful, and it was probably sold to the likes of those who still prefer to buy a Rolls Royce over a BMW - more expensive, heavier, quirkier, not all that useful or practical, but very high quality and ridiculously overdimensioned.
So that is indeed the status of this thing, which needed a new crank handle and a mechanism to make it snap into place, and some cleaning and lubrication.
What is very nice is that it also comes with its original baseboard and the accompanying Jugendstil handles. This suggests that at some point it would also have had a cover, either in metal or wood, but unfortunately that has been lost.
Other interesting features are a push button at the lower front left side, that will automatically reset the pinwheels after a single turn. It is annoying that this has been soldered in place as a botched repair, which also means that the front of the machine can't be easily taken off now. There is a very peculiar way of making the crank handle spring, with a small sprung pin coming in from the top of the handle, running into a slanted groove in the locking pin itself. There is also a small button on the right side of the machine under the grip for lifting the carriage. This springs forward and locks the carriage as soon a the crank is turned away from its home position, and the carriage can then be freed even while a rotation is going on by pushing the knob backwards.
Now, some pretty pictures:
