Schilt Adding Machine
date: label: date made
content: 1850
name: label: maker
content: Schilt, Victor
notes: label: Description
content: This is one of the oldest surviving key-driven adding machines. Victor Schilt, a little-known clock maker from the Swiss canton of Solothurn, sent it for exhibition at the first of the great world’s fairs, the Crystal Palace Great Exhibition held in London in 1851. The entry received an honorable mention, and Schilt reportedly received an order for 100 machines, which he declined to fill.
label: Description
content: The front, top and mechanism of the machine are steel, and the case is wood. The plate and zeroing knobs on the top and the nine digit keys across the front are made of brass. The machine adds numbers up to 299. Only one-digit numbers may be entered. The result is visible in a window in the plate. The plate is marked: V. Schilt (/) Mechaniker in Solothurn.
label: Description
content: The Schilt machine closely resembles an adding machine patented in France in 1844 and sold by Jean-Baptiste Schwilgué and his son Charles. Schilt had worked for the elder Schwilgué before building his machine. Schilt’s machine was part of the collection of Felt & Tarrant Manufacturing Company, and was given to the Smithsonian by the successor to that firm, Victor Comptometer Corporation.
label: Description
content: References:
label: Description
content: J. A. V. Turck, <I>Origin of Modern Calculating Machines</I>, Chicago: Western Society of Engineers, 1921.
label: Description
content: Denis Roegel, “An Early (1844) Key-Driven Adding Machine,” <I>IEEE Annals of the History of Computing</I>, 30 #1 (January-March 2008), pp. 59-65.
label: Description
content: Denis Roegel, "An Overview of Schwigué's Patented Adding Machines," <I>Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society</I>, 126 (September 2015), pp. 16-22.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: Switzerland: Solothurn, Solothurn
topic: label: Subject
content: Mathematics
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Mathematics
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content: Adding Machines
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content: Science & Mathematics
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Victor Comptometer Corporation
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MA.323660
label: accession number
content: 250163
label: catalog number
content: 323660
objectType: label: Object Name
content: adding machine
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: wood (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 11.9 cm x 26 cm x 14.5 cm; 4 11/16 in x 10 1/4 in x 5 23/32 in