Alpina Calculator - Francis WEB

Note: I listed this calculator in the section "simple Adders", but you will see that it's more than a simpl eone, and you can even perform multiplications on this small device.

The Alpina brand is from Germany, and was active between 1949 to 1963. They were making mainly typewriters, and even today you can read some feedback from users saying that these typewriters were part of the best.
Here is a picture of a typewriter:

This picture is from the following web site (http://oztypewriter.blogspot.com/2011/11/alpina-great-portable-typewriter-now.html)

Then in 1958, one of the engineers, Oskar Mildner, built a small mechanical calculating device, that could fit in your hand, and was able to perform all 4 operations. The Alpina calculator was born.
The production started in late 1960 but for many reasons, the company was not able to successfully market and sell this device.
Maybe the main reason was that the Curta calculators were already well established and known by the users to be small, accurate and reliable. If you want to beat the competition, you need to have a better product, or a cheaper one. Apparently the Alpina were not.

This is why the productionstopped in 1961 after only a few models were produced (I read 4000 in different sites). This makes the Alpina a very rare and curious calculator, that will become more and more difficult to get in the future.
I recently was lucky enough to acquire one in good working order. Here are a few pictures to show how neat and elegant this machine was:

Comes in a hard shell box, very typical of the ones from the 1950's where you could find anything from calculators, to shavers, to clock, etc.




How to use it:
On the right side, you can find a crank. On the top, in the middle, is the number you want to add or multiply. Let's take an example and do the following multiplication:
1234 x 12

First, I set 1234 on the top using the wheels. Then I turn the crank one full turn. The number 1234 appears now on the bottom right, and on the bottom left, I have the number 1, saying that I added this only once. I also need to move the bottom part of the machine to the left, so that the arrow on the left points to the first mark.


Now I need to turn the crank once more to perform the second addition (remember, adding a number twice is like multiplying by 2).


Finally, to multiply by 12, it's like adding the number twice and adding 10 times this number. This is where the machine is smart, by moving the bottom one slot to the right, we can add 10 times the same number. I turn the crank once again and I have my answer: 1234 x 12 = 14808


Some of you have hard of the ALPINA brand in a different context: Automobile tuning for BMW. It's not a coincidence. One of the sons of the Alpina owner founded tha Alpina brand for BMW automobile accessories, aimed at improving performances. I guess he was more successful in the automobile business than the calculator was.

I have been tracking the sales of this model, and I only found 25 of them, ranging from $475 to $4000 (with an average price of $1375). Due to the rarity, I guess these prices can only go up..