[BCMA] Comptometer available free to a museum or indivdual

[Moderated BCMA subscriber listserv.]

2011 July 26. The NWMA has declined the offer of a Circa 1940s Felt &
Tarrant COMPTOMETER. Working condition. Free to a good home. Located in
BC Lower Mainland. I have owner's name and phone number. She used this
machine mainly in Toronto, so there is no strong local provenance,
although she still uses it for taxes etc. 90 keys. Dust cover is for a
Victoria brand one. 

Information on Comptometers. :
http://www.digibarn.com/collections/calculators/comptometer/index.html
<http://www.digibarn.com/collections/calculators/comptometer/index.html>


A Comptometer is a type of mechanical (or electro-mechanical) adding
machine. The comptometer was the first adding device to be driven solely
by the action of pressing keys, which are arranged in an array of
vertical and horizontal columns.

Comptometer is, strictly speaking, a trade name of the Felt and Tarrant
Manufacturing Company of Chicago (later the Comptometer Corporation),
but was widely used as a generic name for the class of device. The
original design was patented in 1887 by Dorr Eugene Felt, a U.S.
citizen.

Although primarily designed for adding, division, multiplication and
subtraction could also be performed. Special comptometers with varying
key arrays (with from 30 to well over 100 keys) were produced for a
variety of purposes, including calculating currencies, time and Imperial
measures of weight.

In the hands of a skilled operator, comptometers can add numbers very
rapidly, since all the digits of a number could be entered
simultaneously using as many fingers as is required, making them much
faster than using an electronic calculator. Consequently, in specialist
applications they remained in use in limited numbers into the 1990s, but
with the exception of a handful of machines, have now all been
superseded by the use of computer software.

Colin MacGregor Stevens,

Manager,

New Westminster Museum and Archives,

302 Royal Avenue,

New Westminster, BC,

V3L 1H7, Canada

 

Phone Office:    604-527-4639

Work Cellular :  604-830-6965

Fax:                    604-527-4641

E-mail: cstevens at newwestcity.ca <mailto:cstevens at newwestcity.ca>  

Web Site: www.newwestminster.ca <http://www.newwestminster.ca>  

Normal work week: Sun-Thurs 9-5, OFF Fri-Sat.

 

The New Westminster Museum and Archives (NWMA) consists of:

   * City's Museum (est. 1950)

   * City's Archives

   * Irving House (built 1865)

   * Maintenance of the Samson V Maritime Museum (paddlewheel ship built
1937; museum since 1984) 

 

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