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I am a bioengineer who ended up working as a business analyst in the IT sector in Leuven (Belgium). I am a drummer in a blues band and I love magic tricks. My two children have left home, and my wife and I enjoy visiting antique shops and flea markets.
In 2021, when I turned 55, my father-in-law gave me his electromechanical calculator, the Olivetti Multisumma 22. The inside looked intriguing: it was fascinating to investigate how a calculator could work with only gears, springs and levers. A little later, I found an Original Odhner 239 at a flea market. Soon after, my father gave me a simple Adix, rescued from a rubbish bin 50 years earlier.
It turned out that in less than a hundred years, a whole range of mechanical calculating devices had been invented. My interest was awakened! I try to find a machine for every type of mechanism. Little did I know that after more than a hundred machines, I would still be discovering new things.
It gives me great pleasure to search for the history and stories behind each discovery, in order to reconstruct a picture of the times in which my (great) grandparents lived. Contact with other collectors is enriching and encourages me to share my findings. My next project is to create my own website to present my collection.
And... there is still a lot of material undiscovered and undescribed, so that new collectors can also make exciting discoveries.
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