Dear all,

Did anyone discover any rhyme or reason to the engraving of numbers on the top ring, above the input register with the early models ?
I know that nr. 2096 which I sold a few years ago had numbers 1-8 engraved on the lower edge of the top ring, right under the "CURTA" SYSTEM CURT HERZSTARK, and that it looked more or less exactly like nr 3226 which is now being offered on ebay. However, I have since seen nr 368x and number 28xx, neither of which had these extra engraved numbers. Anyone who can comment or has more data points ?

Thanks,

Cris

My guess is that some Curtas have been updated/altered over time. As far as I know, only the oldest model came with the extra numbers along the lower edge of the collar.

We can also assume that parts were made in batches, and the parts were used as needed at several work stations. The extra numbers were not something that operationally changed the machine.

It's even possible that Curtas with specific arrangements of parts were distributed to different areas of the world. I have noted a tendency of groups of serial numbers to be located in South America and Australia.

Such "back and forth" variations of the parts is something I have also seen on internal components. This has sometimes made it difficult to replace a broken item with an exact duplicate.