Hi, Everybody - and many thanks, Boss, for activating my account...

My Name is Christian, born Argentinian but living since 2000 in Liechtenstein.

Being a mechanical engineer and being my house 50 meters away from the location of the former Contina AG (now all buildings tore down and the whole place is a huge greenfield), it was a matter of time until I learnt about the existence of these mechanical beauties.

I started formally the search for my first Curta one month ago through an announcement in the local newspaper and landed to a very kind woman that offered me a Curta that belonged to his uncle - this two weeks ago.

Serial number 100014.

As experts you are, you know the rest... Myself didn't and I puzzled the first weeks about why I had a 100K serial number when everywhere was reported that 80K was the upper limit for a Type I! Ignorant as I am I reacted: Oh, no! I bought a fake!

I landed firstly at Alfredo in Argentina (it is easy with him the E-Mail exchange in argentinian Spanish) and from him recommended to murff who overloaded me with help and information about the history behind the Curta Ia.

Specially an amazing article of Ing. Elmar Maier (living in Feldkirch, few kilometers away from Mauren) with rich explanation of all the changes he did on it compared to the serial design.

I was willing here to introduce my Curta and myself as a small and humble new collector and hope to share this interest with you!

Saludos a todos!

Christian

http://s671.photobucket.com/user/Chris_in_Japan/media/screen-capture-0_800x519.shkl_zpsr19fzf2f.jpg.html

http://s671.photobucket.com/user/Chris_in_Japan/media/screen-capture-1_800x1266.shkl_zps0pxstxxs.jpg.html

http://s671.photobucket.com/user/Chris_in_Japan/media/screen-capture-1b_800x1546.shkl_zps10vlujah.jpg.html

http://s671.photobucket.com/user/Chris_in_Japan/media/screen-capture-1c_800x1501.shkl_zps7dyqrqhs.jpg.html

http://s671.photobucket.com/user/Chris_in_Japan/media/screen-capture-1e_800x710.shkl_zps5dmi3tl1.jpg.html

http://s671.photobucket.com/user/Chris_in_Japan/media/screen-capture-1d_800x838.shkl_zpsrbqgndbg.jpg.html

http://s671.photobucket.com/user/Chris_in_Japan/media/screen-capture-1f_800x862.shkl_zpszzmtlim6.jpg.html

welcome to the forum





hmmm... I know these pictures... great

Thanks for the welcome, 'murff', and thanks again for the article about the Ia!

Quite "peaceful" the forum with not much interaction but anyway sharing with you: I got in contact with Eng. Elmar Maier regarding the types 1a and 2a prototypes that was developed mainly by him in Contina AG in an effort to optimize manufacturing concepts and single component designs to reduce the price of what it was at the time a quite expensive calculator.

Serie 1a: 200 units were produced in 1961 (S/N 100001 to 100200) and were distributed to schools and universities to test them. Results were excelent.

Serie 2a: none were produced except few experimental gears.

Eng. Maier expressed his disppointment on Contina's management as the results were very promising (equal performance for a massive cost reduction) but even good 10+ years before the final closure, the mass production was never released and only the small prototype serie is all what was left...

Well, it is hard to find a "better" Curta, that much is sure! Well done you!