PHUC
A somewhat unfortunately named calculator for the English-speakers among us ... but it is really an abbreviation, of Pablo HUC, who was the distributor of Minerva calculators, made by FAMOSA. That is where the timeline of this seems to go a little awry. There are plenty of advertisements is Spanish newspapers showing P. HUC, Pelayo 1, Barcelona, selling Minerva in the 1950's - specifically 1955 and 1956. By 1959, the distributorship went to Ormisa, as P. HUC brought his own calculator on the market - which reeks very strongly of Iris, which were bought over by (or merged into) ICE in 1949. However, there are still advertisements for the Iris brand in 1955. Compare for example the plastic bits at the front between this little Phuc and the Iris....they are identical. Pablo Huc apparently bought ICE - but the dates vary - it was in 1947 or 1948 ...or 1955, which explains the similarities and the use of the same parts. How it is possible however that he isn't advertising with his own Phuc calculator in 1956 is a bit strange - so the timing may be a little off on these mergers, sales and other mentioned developments. My best guess for this machine being brought onto the market is 1957 - that ties in with the metallic paint and white plastic parts. In any case, we have here a calculator which is designed to the most modern principles, quite reminiscent of a Brunsviga in arrangement, while the Minerva machines that were branded Brunsviga for sale in Germany had the counter register in the carriage, this machine uses Brunsviga's original arrangement with the counter register with automatic direction selection up top, over the input register. They are both protected from dust by the same piece of transparent plastic. Also the carriage is dust-tight with a piece of celluloid over the numeral wheels. Another very interesting development is the use of rotating comma indicators, in the same way Mercedes-Euklid adapted them in the 1930s. So no comma sliders or rails to break or get lost for this machine... The operation is very simple - there are only two clearing levers, the one on the carriage obviously clears the carriage, the one on the machine itself clears the input and the counter at the same time. Looking at the mechanism it seems it should be possible to only clear the counter without clearing the input by pulling the lever to the right, but I cannot get it to work correctly. The machine at some time in the past was mistreated quite badly, and a lot of the gears are on axes or screws that are bent or loose, which caused the gears to lose engagement quite easily when I got the machine, and that is definitely not wanted. There is no backtransfer.These are some pictures of the insides:
I had to remake a screw that lost its thread which held the intermediate gears for the counter clearing in place. To take the clearing lever off the right side of the machine, undo the shaft through the intermediate gears from the left, where the housing of the machine has a hole. The counter has a sliding blind that shows the complements if the rotation is started in the negative direction. At the same time the yellow indicator on the left switches to -, or + if you start with a positive turn. There is also an indicator on the right, which I suppose should be yellow as well instead of red, but I cannot for the life of me get that to display correctly. Possibly the indicator wheel itself has rotated on that shaft.
Another interesting experience was trying to get the carriage out. For this, you take the bottom plate off, and will, with the carriage completely to the right, see the stop screw that you can undo. That is however not all. There is another hole right next to the carriage shift mechanism (and almost obscured by it), and through this hole, you must undo the connecting screw to the fulcrum mechanism that operates the counter, otherwise the carriage will not come out. And it must come out, because the screws for the cover are at the bottom.
Once all the clearing levers and shafts were returned to their correct orientation, and the lock for the pinwheel cylinder had been bent back to operate correctly, I actually quite like this little Phuc... they don't seem that common, especially not outside of Spain.
PHuc went on to time and access control systems, and they still exist today - with the same logo. Check them out! www.phuc.es