Corona Model K Adding Machine

This machine has seven columns of ten plastic keys each; the bottom key is red and clears the column. It has a metal case painted speckled black. A repeat/error lever is on the left, and total/sub-total, non-add, and non-print keys are on the right. Numbers are set by pressing keys and entered by turning a handle on the right side of the machine. The printing mechanism (which displays totals of up to eight digits), black ribbon, and paper tape are at the back. Both spools of the ribbon are on the left side and it is threaded across the back in a C-shaped path. Two of the five rubber feet are decaying. This example of the machine has an extra paper tape.

A marked at the top reads: CORONA. A mark at the front reads: CAPACITY 999,999.99. Another mark there reads: Portable Adding Machine Co. (/) New York NY USA (/) By (/) L. C. Smith & Corona Typewriters Inc. A mark behind the keyboard, near the ribbon, reads: KA6D0027.

The machine was designed by Glenn J. Barrett. A version of this machine was manufactured by the Corona Typewriter Company of Groton, New York. The Portable Adding Machine Company introduced the machine as the Portable in October 1924. That company began in Chicago and soon moved to New York. By 1928, the machine was sold as the Corona by the Corona Typewriter Company.

Compare MA.323608.

According to the donor, Walter A. Carrington Jr., this particular machine was owned by Pratt Coal Company in Fulton, New York. Carrington received it as a gift from his mother when he went to Clarkson University in the late 1950s as a freshman business school student. It later accompanied him to graduate studies in business at Dartmouth College and then to work in Chicago and in Washington, D.C.

References:

E. Martin, The Calculating Machines (Die Rechenmaschinen), trans. P. A. Kidwell and M. R. Williams, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992, p. 333.

Business Machines and Equipment Digest,Chicago: Equipment Research Corporation, 1928, sec 3-2, p. 4.

Accession File.

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