By: David P Knight
Until November 2006 I was the proud owner of a Trinks-Brunsviga model MB. Where I lived at the time was so small I had it boxed up and hidden. I decided to put it up for auction on eBay. It made $500 and was sold to a gentleman in the USA. The sale price was some compensation for no longer owning this treasure. Photos of the machine are published on my web site. You will find the link in my resource box below.
Sometimes called the ‘Midget’, it is mounted on a wood base with a mahogany veneer and has beautifully curved cover in the same material. It has a capacity of 9×13×8 and I researched the machine using its serial number #45827I and from the resulting information I believe this particular machine was made around 1920. There were a few defects, however, considering it’s age it is in excellent condition.
The Trinks-Brunsviga MB was produced between the years 1910 – 1927 and is known as a pinwheel calculator. Only sixteen thousand machines were built. I gleaned much of this information from rechenmaschinen-illustrated and I am grateful to owners for this site. The machine has a UK ‘manufacturers’ plate on the base but they were made in Germany. I can only speculate on the reason for this; early political correctness maybe? After all the UK was at war Germany from 1914 to 1919.
The German patent of W T Odhner, 1891, was obtained by Grimme, Natalis & Co, Braunschweig, and was embodied in a machine known as the “Brunsviga.” Odhner was then in St Petersberg, Russia but moved to Sweden after the Russian Revolution. Brunsviga incidentally is Latin for Braunschweig.
Grimme, Natalis & Co named the company Brunsviga Maschinenwerke AG in 1927 and much later merged with the Olympia Werke AG, Wilhelmshaven (1959). Also closely connected to the Brunsviga name is Franz Trinks who lead the development from 1892 until 1926.
The Trinks-Brunsviga MB antique pinwheel calculator is very collectible and quite valuable but there are other Brunsviga calculators that are rarer and in turn far more valuable.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
i have one of this machines need to sell
Hi Frankie why not email some photos and a description and I’ll knock a short article for you. editor*@*collectiblebitz.com (Remove the asterisks ‘*’)
Have one of larger Brunsviga. How can I find out more about it.
Most information about these machines is in German but you can use Google translate to get a pretty good English description. The Science Museum in London has both examples of the machine and some info on it’s web site. Here’s a couple of links to help you.
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/Search.aspx?keywords=brunsviga+&results=10
http://historicalc.com/artikel/Mechanische_Rechenmaschinen_f%FCr_wissenschaftliche_Berechnungen