World’s first pocket calculator goes up for auction: ‘Exceptionally rare’ 17th century machine made of wood could fetch £100,000

World's first pocket calculatorAn ‘exceptionally rare’ pocket-sized calculator from the 17th Century is expected to attract £100,000 at auction.

The Arithmetical machine is one of the first mechanical calculating devices known to exist and is the first portable device.

The antique ‘pocket calculator’ will go under the hammer at Christie’s in October and is one of three examples of the design to have survived.

The wooden machine measures around 15cm in width and 32cm in length and dates from 1673.

It was crafted by René Grillet de Roven, who was a Parisian mechanician and watchmaker to His Royal Highness King Louis XIV.

James Hyslop, head of Travel, Science and Natural History at the auction house, said: ‘This pocket-sized calculator is one of the earliest surviving pieces in the history of the computer.’

The Arithmetical machine performs all the arithmetic operations including addition, subtraction, multiplication and division through the use of these rolling rotating Napier’s ‘bones’.

There are only three other known examples of this design, two of which are in the Musée des Arts et Métiers, Paris and the other in the collections of IBM in New York.

 

By