Original Ohdner Model 39, serial number 288965, ~1951
Digits: 10 rotor, 8 counter, 13 accumulator Manufactured: Göteborg, Sweden, ~1951
This model 39 has a setting check register (the “control register”) and tens transmission on the counter (the “proof register”). It also has a back transfer lever to the right of the accumulator just as in the model 271 which resets the sliders to the result shown in the result register on reset.
Timo Leipälä has provided a listing of Original Ohdner serial numbers against year of production 2 which indicates that this machine, with serial number 288965 was sold in 1951. Model 39 was introduced in 1939 and later replaced with model 139 (with plastic carriage shift buttons).
This machine is occasionally mis-described on the web as an M-602 No 73. The M-602-o7 is the casting number.4 A catalog of the various models has been made available by John Wolff.5
Provenance: Originally owned by the John Sharp Timber Company (Corner Lorrimer St and Johnstone St, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), which was later taken over by the East Asiatic Company. The East Asiatic Company closed this premises in 1975. The machine was salvaged from that closure and held by a former employee who presented it to this collection in January 2012.
1 see http://home.vicnet.net.au/~wolff/calculators/Odhner/Odhner.htm#Odhner27 (viewed 15 Jan 2012) (↑)
2 http://www.rechenmaschinen-illustrated.com/Odhner_serialNumbers.htm (viewed 16 Jan 2012) (↑)
3 http://www.antiguedadesrusticas.com/detalles.php?id=2980 and http://museu.boselli.com.br/Odhner%20M.htm (viewed 16 Jan 2012) (↑)
4 my thanks to John Wolff for clearing up my own uncertainties on this matter (↑)
5 http://www.rechnerlexikon.de/files/OdhnerCatalogue1947-300dpi.pdf (viewed 16 Jan 2012) (↑)
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