Curta Type I Mechanical Calculator Near Mint Condition

This auction is for a Curta Mechanical Calculator believed to be from around 1948-1954.  The serial number is 34803.  This Curta is in near mint condition with only a few scratches on the exterior case and some residue on the bottom of the calculator which is believed to be from a piece of tape which had the gentleman’s name on it.  This will most likely come off with goof-off, but I did not want to alter any parts causing damage.  If you have any questions please feel free to e-mail me.  Below is some general information on the Curta and instructions for use.  Thank you for viewing, and happy bidding.

The Curta is a small, hand-cranked mechanical calculator introduced in 1948. It has an extremely compact design, a small cylinder that fits in the palm of the hand. It can be used to perform addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and, with more difficulty, square roots and other operations.  Numbers are entered using slides (one slide per digit) on the side of the device. The revolution counter and result counter appear on the top. A single turn of the crank adds the input number to the result counter, at any position, and increment the revolution counter accordingly. Pulling the crank upwards slightly before turning it performs a subtraction instead of an addition. Multiplication, division, and other functions require a series of crank and carriage-shifting operations.  The Curta was affectionately known as the "pepper grinder" or "peppermill" due to its shape and means of operation. It was also termed the "math grenade", due to its superficial resemblance to a certain type of hand grenade.  The Type I Curta has 8 digits of slides, a 6-digit revolution counter, and an 11-digit result counter. According to the advertising literature, it weighs only 8 ounces (about 230 grams). 

-All information acquired from Wikipedia.com