2018.25

Karl Neubert Braillewriter

(a) Braillewriter: Black enameled cast-aluminum base with open cutouts beneath keyboard; fixed black steel diebox arches over the paper roller assembly; a separate aluminum plate is screwed over the gap between the base and the diebox, and features yellow and red paper label, "Karl Neubert/Blinden-Schreibgeräte/Leipzig W 33"; seven wooden braille keys with ivory plastic tops, slightly splayed; oval space bar extends out in middle, steel key-bars; nickel-steel back space lever is mounted on base to right of keyboard; flapper style carriage release lever is on left side of base; bright aluminum and nickel steel carriage; main lower paper roller is black enameled wood and has a spring loaded aluminum paper clamp inset down its length, knob on right is original Bakelite, knob on left is gray plastic typewriter knob; smaller diameter black rubber-covered steel paper roller is mounted above the main roller and held in place by spring-loaded bars; toothed steel margin set bar on back of carriage with two wire-spring nickel steel sets; carriage return pulley beneath front left of carriage, mounted to steel carriage rod; stamped on top right carriage, "1135".

H-3.5 W-16 D-9 inches

ca. 1955

Karl Neubert Blinden-Schreibgeräte

Leipzig, East Germany

By 1949, Karl Neubert was listed in a Leipzig city directory as a manufacturer of braille machines at Burgauenstrasse 9. Surviving examples of Neubert's work include this Picht inspired six key braillewriter design and six and seven-point stenographic writers. By the early 1960s, it appears that Neubert's shop at Burgauenstrasse 9, and his designs, had been taken over by the Mechanische Werkstatt fur Blindenhilfsmittel der DDR, the manufacturing arm of the Deutsche Zentralbücherei für Blinde(DZB) in Leipzig, East Germany after WWII. A Mechanische Werkstatt version of the same design can be seen in 2014.12.

Museum Purchase, 2018.25.