TASCO Adder

This stylus-operated steel notched band adder has seven crook-shaped columns and one straight one, with eight notched bands below. Eight windows show results, and a narrow clearing lever is at the top. A steel plate slides over seven columns in the shape of inverted crooks, as well as an eighth straight column. These are used in subtraction. Instructions accompany the instrument. Compare to MA.313629.

The TASCO pocket arithmometer closely resembles an adder sold by the Gray Arithmometer Company of Ithaca, New York, in the early 20th century and distributed by the Morse Chain Company of Ithaca in the 1920s. In 1929, the Morse Chain Company became part of Borg-Warner Corporation. Distribution of the adder soon shifted to the Tavella Sales Company of New York City.

According to the donor "the little Tasco adder was given to me by Ruth's father, Jacob M. Frankel, who for some years was the manager of the extensive New York operation fothe Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropical Societies in New York City. He had always been interested in math, and was a graduate of the Colorado School of Mines. He probably purchased the little adder in the 1920s." It seems likely that the TASCO was later than the donor believed.

References: P. Kidwell, “Adders Made and Used in the United States,” Rittenhouse, 8, (1994): pp. 78-96.

Advertisements in Popular Mechanics 83 (March 1945), p. 178, (April 1945): 180, and (May, 1945), p. 178. Popular Science 152 (January 1948), p. 34.

Utility Supply Company, Office Supply Catalog (Chicago, 1946), p. 285.

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