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version 3
newspaper ad from 1947
version 1
version 2a
version 2b
The elusive connection between the Lightning Calculator and the Lightning Adding Machine. This box would have contained the early non-clearing version of the Lightning Adding Machine
version 1 box
version 2 box
version 3a box
newspaper ad from 1949
Post Script:
Sharp-eyed readers will have noticed that this month’s post was typed on a typewriter. I wanted to do something a little special for the fourth anniversary of this blog. My more knowledgeable readers will probably be able to identify what typewriter I used just by the typeface 🙂 Really super sharp-eyed knowledgeable readers will catch that I was forced to use two different typewriters due to a carriage breakdown in my LC Smith & Corona Typewriters Inc Sterling s/n 4A110773. To the rescue came my Underwood Portable s/n S1154711 which took over from “Patent and Other Information” on down.
American Stationer 
Welcome to the Typosphere! (:
Grr, you’re gonna flare up that itch for mechanical calculators that I currently have managed to make dormant, aren’t you?
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Awesome!!! Wait until you see my update to the Calcumeter post where I show my latest find, a 10 dial British currency Calcumeter.
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Oh, here’s a 1955 wholesale dealer’s flyer I found for the Lightning:
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This is really interesting, especially the part where it states that it has been “a steady seller for more than 30 years”. Maybe the Lightning Calculator was its predecessor. Need more documentation. Thanks for sharing!
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yeah, that would seem to push the introduction of the design back to the mid-20’s, depending on how you interpret that boast. 😀
anyway, this came as an insert to a 1955 AMES General Supply Catalog, along with some other inserts dating out to mid 1956 (latest), so this flyer could have been produced between about mid 1955 to mid 1956, as it is itself not dated.
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That tracks with the info on the flyer itself. Note where it says “new address” and it gives the Slauson St address. Lightning Adding Machine Sales Co moved there in October 1955. That would make a late 1955 to mid-1956 timeframe the most likely. Now I have to stop so that I can go see if there are any flyers in any of the Ames catalogs that I have…
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