Nisa K5
I can never resist a brand new calculator ... in this case a Czechoslovakian Nisa K5, brand new in the styrofoam packaging, with its plastic cover, manual, and list of addresses for repair in Germany. What’s not to love. It took its sweet time to arrive to Belgium, but finally, after more than two months, I could expectantly open the box. The crank needed to be assembled, and two columns had a sliding stepped drum that was stuck and needed a bit of lubrication before the machine would operate. Other than that, it is brand new, never used. And the reason for that is not that strange - the machine has leading letters AC in the serial number - this points to the year of construction - 1977. In the packaging, the service agent manual has the “current” situation, for 1984. So this hand-operated, fully mechanical calculating machine was sold new in 1984, possibly as one of the last sales of this kind, ever...
The crank clicks in place in two position, depending on whether the user likes it to point up or down when in the rest position. It can be taken out by pressing the clearing button. The little grey knob on the left side of the keyboard is a lock for the “1” key, so it can be used as an item counter in addition and is not reset with the rest of the keyboard.
It is a pretty machine, it is a bit heavy in operation, but works well.
