Felt & Tarrant Comptometer Model 992

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The Comptometer was invented by the American, Dorr Eugene Felt and was patented in 1887. Manufactured by the Felt and Tarrant Manufacturing Company of Chicago, the Comptometer was the first truly practical and commercially successful adding machine, with the first serious manufacture and sales occurring in 1888.

They proved very successful and were developed and manufactured in large numbers into the early 1970s.

"Comptometer" eventually came to be used as a generic name for calculators of this type from other manufacturers, though strictly this is wrong. However, to complicate matters, in 1957 the Felt and Tarrant Manufacturing Company changed its name to Comptometer Corporation. Then in 1960 Comptometer Corporation sold its UK operation, including the right to the Comptometer name in Britain, to Control Systems Ltd. (the parent of the Bell Punch Company), which merged it with its own company to form Sumlock-Comptometer. Comptometer Corporation then contracted with Control Systems to have all its machines made by Bell Punch in England and shipped back to the U.S.A. This resulted in all Comptometer production ceasing in Chicago in 1961 and machines from Sumlock being marked with the Comptometer name.

We have two Felt & Tarrant Comptometers one of which bears the model number: p22-2412

The main manufacturers of Comptometer type machines were:

Felt & Tarrant (later Comptometer Corporation, and Victor Comptometer), the original manufacturer.
Burroughs Adding Machine Co., Detroit, U.S.A.
Bell Punch Co., Uxbridge, England. Sold under the names Plus, Sumlock, and Sumlock Comptometer.

Manufacturer: Felt & Tarrant
Date: 1950