Brunsviga Midget (Brunsviga Model B) Calculating Machine

Object Details

Grimme, Natalis & Co.

Description

This compact pinwheel lever-set and manually operated non-printing calculating machine has a steel mechanism and housing. Nine slots contain levers for setting numbers. The levers rotate forward to set digits. A steel crank with a wooden handle that extends from the right side of the machine rotates backward (clockwise) for addition and multiplication and forward (counterclockwise) for subtraction and division. A wing nut on the left side zeros the setting levers.

At the front of the machine is a movable carriage with 13 windows that show dials of the result register on the right and eight windows for the revolution register on the left. The revolution register has no carry. Sliding decimal markers are on a rod over the result register. Depressing a lever at the front of the machine releases the carriage for shifting. Wing nuts at the ends of the carriage are used to zero the registers on it. A bell on the left end of the carriage rings when the result changes sign (as in over division). The machine sits on a wooden base.

Marks on the front of the machine read: BRUNSVIGA-MIDGET; No 20276; PATENT (/) G.N.& C.C.a.A.; and Carl H. REU [. . .] [(/) AND TITLE BUILDING (/) [...] HILADELPHIA, PA.. A mark on the back reads: Patented in the United States 12 June 1906.

Compare to MA.335656.

Carl H. Reuter (1866–1925) was born in Dessau, Germany, immigrated to the United States in 1885, and became a U.S. citizen in 1894. He distributed Brunsviga calculating machines from about 1908 until about 1924, when he sold his business to the Allen Corporation and returned to Germany.

References: Typewriter Topics61 (December 1925): p. 36.

U.S. Passport Applications of Carl H. Reuter.

Location

Currently not on view

Credit Line

Gift of George E. Lane

ca 1912

ID Number

MA.309542

catalog number

309542

accession number

104255

maker number

20276

accession number

104255

Object Name

calculating machine

Physical Description

steel (overall material)

wood (overall material)

Measurements

overall: 12.2 cm x 31.7 cm x 16 cm; 4 13/16 in x 12 15/32 in x 6 5/16 in

place made

Germany: Lower Saxony, Brunswick

See more items in

Medicine and Science: Mathematics

Calculating Machines

Science & Mathematics

National Museum of American History

subject

Mathematics

Record ID

nmah_690700

Metadata Usage (text)

CC0

GUID (Link to Original Record)

http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746a5-118f-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa