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Calculator Books: The Collector's Guide to Pocket Calculators
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Title: | The Complete Collector's Guide to Pocket Calculators |
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Author(s): |
Guy Ball and Bruce Flamm. Both American authors have been collecting calculators for 25 years - so that should be qualification enough! | |
| First edition: | 1997 | |
| Publisher: | Wilson/Barnett Publishing, Tustin, California, USA | |
| This example | 1997 soft back edition by Wilson/Barnett Publishing | |
| ISBN: | 1-888840-14-5 | |
| Printed pages | 208 | |
| Cover: | Book design by Media Enterprises, Anaheim, California. It is a montage of various calculators, including a red Sinclair, yellow Omron (author's favourite), Anita, Commodore, Panasonic etc. | |
| Size: | 140mm x 215mm (w x h) | |
| Price: | $23.95 in the USA | |
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Contents:
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Covers pocket (and small desktop) calculators over the 1970s and very early 1980s. Contains over 1,500 calculators from over 220 companies with an alphabetical ordering of brand names and black and white sample images. It has smaller appendices for figural, novelty and adverts. | |
| Comments: | The bible for enthusiasts by enthusiasts. An invaluable source of information. I very much like the anecdotes in the randomly scattered boxes. However, it is beginning to show its age and bias. By my estimates there are probably over 6,000 different variations of calculators for this period. The information is sketchy at best but mostly accurate. The values (in US dollars) were never going to be of much use except to flag the extremely valuable and extremely mundane. Being of US origin it will often underestimate the value of UK (or for that matter any territory outside of the US) calculators and has many gaps. Don't get me wrong; if you collect calculators you MUST have a copy of this, but use it as a guide only. Thankfully the "database" has been maintained and updated on the web by Vintage Calculators. You can also get a very comprehensive list of calculators from Be-calc. | |
| Notable Quotes: | "If you're over forty, you probably remember your first pocket calculator fondly..". "In contrast to stamps, coins or baseball cards, we don't know what is yet to be discovered as we collect calculators.". "I paid about $200 for my first pocket calculator... it wiped out my savings account... I proudly wore [it] on my belt for many years...". |
