Message 986 on the ISRG List

Date: Fri Apr 2, 1999  5:23 am 
Subject: [sliderule] Schmendrolog a Hoax!  JoeDentist@... 
 
It has come to my attention that the slide rule I offered on EBAY was a
clever forgery. It seems that we have all been duped. The old Polish woman
that sold it to me must have been a clever mathematical device con woman. Now
even my six foot Bruning Demo Rule is in question,

It turns out that although the Schmendrolog sliderule does exist physically,
it was never produced in Poland, but is a modified Versalog, with red plastic
cursor ends, and new faces and edges. The evil person that perpetrated this
scandal will be sought out and punished severely. It turns out that the
Polska Firma Suwakow Logarithmiznch never existed, and the polish words on
the back translate to: "Write Calculations Here," and "Write Women's
Telephone Numbers Here."

I'm sorry if any bidders were attempting to actually buy the rule, but since
the reserve was not met, there should be no dissappointment. After all, I was
fooled, and I've been collectiing for almost three months now.

What a dissappointing world we live in when even slide rule descriptions on
EBAY can not be trusted to be completely accurate. I mourn my innocence.


Joe Levine

[Here is the descriptive text for the eBay auction:]
 
This item has just recently come into my possession from an estate sale.
The story given me is that in the late sixties, the Polish government
wanted to establish a machine tools industry comparable to the Germans. In
order to seal the quality image, they decided that they needed to produce
their own slide rules. They chose to produce a bamboo/celluloid duplex rule
similar in quality and design to the German Dietzgen 1738's or Post
Versalogs. The Poles made two big miscalculations however - 1. The advent
of the electronic calculator was just about to render slide rules obsolete.
and 2. Is was extemely difficult to grow bamboo in Poland. A company called
PFSL was formed to produce the rules, which were branded Polski. Anyway, a
few prototypes and early production rules survived. This is one of the
early Schmendrolog production models -the top of the line model - and it
has some unique features. The front of the rule is pretty standard, but the
back side has only half length scales - the rest is mostly blank except for
the cryptic polish words "WPISZ OBLICZENIA TUTAJ," and "ZANOTUJ NUMERY
TELEFONICZNE KOBIET TUTAJ." It seems that here was a big shortage of scrap
paper in the Communist world, and the back of the rule was a sort of
erasable blackboard, where the Polish scientist or engineer could record
notes about the calculations in pencil. An eraser attached to the cursor
would erase the notation area, sort of like an Etch-A-Sketch. The eraser is
missing. Although this feature was never fully implemented, it is
interesting to note that scientists were so enamored of this feature that
they used the concept of "Reverse Polish Notation" in the earliest
calculators and computers. This was also the first known appearance of the
RND scale, an abortive atempt at slide rule random number generation. The
rule itself is in pretty good condition considering its age, with some
corrosion on the cursor frame and end pieces, and the box is a little
crushed and spotted. The sheath is some sort of nylon and has the classic
Polski "mummy" shape. The cursor ends are the easily identified Polski red
plastic ( A bow to the Soviets perhaps?). This would make a fine addition
to any collection. Polski rules are hardly ever seen in this country and
rarely in this good shape. Note that the box and manual (in Polish) use the
Pre-1970 Polski logo, and the rule has the post-1970 logo, so this is a
true transitional model. Polski quit production in 1971, and I take this to
be an early '71 model. Buyer pays postage of $3.20 to any US location. (If
you have any questions, E-mail me and refer to item AFD-153.) Big composite
picture takes a while to load, but its worth it!

Message 7786 in the ISRG List
Date: Tue Apr 3, 2001  1:32 pm 
Subject: Re: SV: [sliderule] Left handed rule - hoax  sliderules@... 

John

The first part was easy - reversing the image. The next part was
tedious - reversing the individual numbers. Though what I did was to
have two images, one normal and one reversed, open at the same time
and cut and paste from one to the other. Fortunately the software I
use, Micrografx, makes it fairly easy to have irregular shapes for
cutting and pasting.

I'll email Walter a copy.

Regards

Ron [Manley]

Message 8477 on the Yahoo ISRG list.

From: Chris Redding  
Date: Thu May 10, 2001  6:02 am 
Subject: New book on the slide rule scene  credding@... 

 
Greetings,

Searching for books on eBay, I found a new book "Slide Rule for
Dummies" by Paul Reubens. The URL to the Dutch auction is:

http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1143765955

Check it out gentlemen.

Take care,

Chris

Message 19145 on the ISRG List.

From: Ed Chamberlain  
Date: Sat May 24, 2003  11:18 am 
Subject: Re: SR a Yuri Gagarin flight slide rule on eBay???? 
 
TO: Jim Cerny and those interested in Gagarin's slide rule:

In 1973 I spent a bit of time in the Soviet Union including visits to
eastern Siberia and the Baikonur Launch Site. During that visit I met and
had dinner with Yuri Gagarin. We talked about various items of common
interest including flying and engineering. When the subject turned to slide
rules, I was amazed to find out that Yuri was also a slide rule collector.
He had an example of every slide rule made in Russia - including one of the
big "Manhole Cover" circular artillery slide rules that the Soviets made
for the East Germans. As a favor for me, Yuri autographed several flight
computer slide rules for me with his name "Gagarin, Yu." on the side of the
slide rule in violet ink. I still have one of these left and would be
willing to sell it to the underbidder on this auction for a fair price.

Do svidaniya & Schastlivo ostavatsya !!

Ed Chamberlain


At 03:23 AM 5/24/2003 +0000, Jim Cerny wrote:
>I usually resist the temptation to comment on strange eBay slide rule
>auctions, but can't resist this one.
>
>Someone (a gallery, not just a stray individual) has listed what they
>claim is the slide rule (flight computer) owned by Yuri Gagarin,
>allegedly inscribed by Yuri. See auction item 2176168261. Best of
>all, they have a price estimate of $5K-$7.5K on this, with starting
>bid of $2.5K. Oh yes, and they want to charge a 20% buyer's premium!
>
>The rule appears to be the quite common Russian flight computer that
>shows up on eBay and other places. The auction is poorly illustrated
>and except for providing a story about the rule, provides no
>provenance. As proof that I have too much time on my hands this
>evening, I just wrote to the seller to ask how they know it really
>was Yuri's. If I get a particularly interesting answer I will share
>it with the list.
>
>If you bid on this, please let me know, because I have an Albert
>Einstein Nestler slide rule you might be interested in as well!!
> - Jim Cerny