Comptometer Model C
date: label: date made
content: 1910
name: label: maker
content: Felt & Tarrant Manufacturing Company
notes: label: Description
content: This key-driven non-printing adding machine has ten columns of black and white color-coded keys. Complementary digits are indicated and the keys are alternately concave (odd digits) and flat (even digits). The key stems become progressively longer as the digits are larger. There are subtraction levers and decimal markers (unnumbered) in front of the keys. In front of these is a row of 11 windows in the brown steel case that reveals the result on numeral wheels below.
label: Description
content: The machine has serial number 36372, which is indicated on the front to the left of the keys. It is marked on a metal tag screwed to the top of the machine: TRADE COMPTOMETER MARK (/) PAT’D [. . .] JUL.14.03 (/) Felt & Tarrant Mfg. Co. (/) Chicago. The date listed is the last of several patent dates on this tag.
label: Description
content: The model C Comptometer went on the market in 1909. This example was first used at a commercial bank in Westfield, Massachusetts. In about 1950, it was given to Harry Rapp, on of the bank directors, as a relic. He in turn gave it to Judith Lowell in about 1965. She put it to use in the office of her husband, the physician Milton Lowell of Potsdam, New York, even though the Lowells already had a more recent printing machine. Not long after Dr. Lowell retired in 1984, the couple gave the Comptometer to the Smithsonian.
label: Description
content: References:
label: Description
content: U.S. Patent #960528
label: Description
content: J. H. McCarthy, <I>The American Digest of Business Machines</I>, Chicago: American Exchange Service, 1924, p. 548.
label: Description
content: Accession File.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Illinois, Chicago
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 Milton and Judith Lowell
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1985.0120.01
label: catalog number
content: 1985.0120.01
label: maker number
content: 36372
label: accession number
content: 1985.0120
objectType: label: Object Name
content: adding machine
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: steel (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: plastic (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 14.5 cm x 27.5 cm x 37 cm; 5 23/32 in x 10 13/16 in x 14 9/16 in