Estimated in millions, the calculator is being auctioned

Estimated at between two and three million euros, one of the nine existing examples of Pascaline, the first mechanical calculating machine invented in 1642 by Blaise Pascal, will be auctioned on November 19 in Paris.

"The first attempt in history to substitute the work of a machine for that of the human mind" to "mechanize mental calculation," this rare scientific instrument will be presented as part of the sale of "the Léon Parcé library, Paris," announced the London auction house Christie's.

Built by Pascal at the age of 19 in 1642, this machine was initially designed to help his father, president of the Normandy Court of Aids, a jurisdiction specializing in tax matters, to "restore order to the tax revenues" of the territory.

Of the twenty or so examples created by Pascal, only nine "remain in the world," including several preserved at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris and the Henri-Lecoq Museum in Clermont-Ferrand. The example presented at auction "can be considered the only one still in private hands," according to Christie's. Between now and the day of the auction, the Pascaline will be exhibited in Paris, then in New York and Hong Kong.

Of three types, Pascalines "are either decimal (for additions, subtractions, multiplications and divisions), or accounting (for monetary calculations), or reserved for the calculation of distances and called surveying". The model put up for auction would be the only one known among the existing ones dedicated to the calculation of surveys, and it is still functional to this day.