The history of the Odhner company

The Swedish Willgodt T. Odhner invented the pin wheel principle in Europe in 1874 independent from Frank S. Baldwin, who had the same idea in the USA in 1872. Odhner produced his calculators in St.Petersburg / Russia until the "October Revolution" in 1917, the factory became a Russia-run business. Odhner moved to Sweden and founded the "ORIGINAL-ODHNER" company in Gothenburg. He attached "Original" on its name, because the look-alike calculators from BRUNSVIGA (made according to a bought patent from Odhner) was a very strong competitor. ( In Russia the production of ODHNER calculators was continued under the name FELIKS:
In 1924 the factory was moved to Moscow by Feliks Dzerzhinsky, later the head of the KGB ... )

 

Text adapted from / original text : Mr. C.HAMANN website: www.tfh-berlin.de/~hamann