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Diskussion:Wizard Calculating Machine
The Wizard Calculation Machine was made by the Wizard Werkes, Gmbd of Bonn Germany. The Wizard was slight modification of the newer Baby Calculator. Not only was the physical resemblemce strong but the instruction manuals used for European sales were just translations of the instructions for the Baby.
The Wizard came with and without clips for holding the stylus. The clips seems to be an innovation by Wizard Werkes. The molds for the plastic backs could be set to produce clips or not. When the back is sans clips there are still telltale signs of the clips.
The Wizard was exported to several different countries - the instruction manual came in: French, Spanish, Italian and English. However, the instruction pamphlets that came with the units sold in American were derived from the instruction sheet for "The New Handy Kalkometer".
Note that the wide version of the Wizard tried to mimic the proportions and graphics of the Addiator. It also used the round display windows instead of the square windows that had been copied from the Baby.
The earliest advertisement for the Wizard found so far is May 1958 in Popular Mechanics P. 57. The price for a Wizard seems to have decrease rapidly, an ad for the 'New 1959' Wizard from the mail order house of Thoresen, Inc. found in a Jan, 1959 magazine has the price at $1.98. However, a Christmas Ad published in November 1959 has the price at $1.00. And it appears that stores would sometimes sell them for even less: one calculator had an old price tag on it for 59 cents.
The rapid price drop indicates that the German company was under great pressure to cut costs to maintain profits. Volume was good but profits were low. I suspect that they moved production to Japan to cut costs. However, once there, they rapidly lost control of the product and rivals quickly developed. These rivals rapidly drove them out of business.