#Exhibit of the Month

Manufactured in 1902 by AG vorm Siedel & Nauman in Dresden, Germany.

Dimensions: Length - 38 cm, Width - 35 cm, Height - 20 cm. Weight - 16 kg. It entered the museum collection in 1984, transferred from the National Museum of Ethnography and Natural History.

The typewriter features a standard carriage mounted on ball bearings and rollers, along with a keyboard equipped with 42 keys. These contain two complete sets of Latin and Cyrillic alphabets, punctuation marks, numbers, and mathematical symbols, enabling the typing of 126 characters. Beneath the metal casing, the type bars are arranged in a fan-like pattern, holding embossed characters and ink ribbon rollers. When the keys are pressed, the type bars strike the inked ribbon, imprinting characters onto the paper tensioned in the machine's roller system.

The side panels are elegantly decorated with refined cast-iron elements in the Art Nouveau style, displaying the brand name - "Ideal." The Polyglott model, featuring a bilingual keyboard patented in the United Kingdom by Max Klaczko from Riga, Latvia, was produced between 1902 and 1913, marking the first typewriter capable of writing in two languages. The "Ideal Polyglott" typewriter was actively sold in the Russian Empire and gained significant popularity in Poland, Bulgaria, and Serbia.
The typewriter - a mechanical device used for printing text directly onto paper - ranks among the most important inventions of the modern era, as it revolutionized communication. From the late 19th century to the early 21st century, it became an indispensable tool, widely used by writers, in offices, for business correspondence, and in private homes. The peak of typewriter sales occurred in the 1950s when the average annual sales in the United States reached 12 million units. In November 2012, the British Brother factory produced what it claimed to be the last typewriter, which was donated to the Science Museum in London.
The advent of computers, word processing software, printers, and the decreasing cost of these technologies led to the typewriter's disappearance from the mainstream market, turning it into a museum exhibit.
June 23 marks Typewriter Day, commemorating the date when American journalist and inventor Christopher Latham Sholes patented his typewriter. This day celebrates the simple yet revolutionary device that has become history, as well as the remarkable literary achievements it has enabled since 1868.

Virtual Tour

#Exhibit of the Month

August 2023

Panel. The State Coat of Arms of the Republic of Moldova

Authors: Gheorghe Vrabie and Maria Dogaru. Drawing: by Gheorghe Vrabie; original; 50 x 80 cm, collection of the National Museum of History of Moldova

The State Coat of Arms of the Republic of Moldova as a heraldic identity symbol of the new state is the result of extensive discussions attended by the press, scholars, plastic artists, politicians of all colors, as well as the broad masses of the population. This process started immediately after the approval on April 27, 1990 of the State Flag - the tricolor.

On May 1, 1990, the republican press announced the start of the contest for the development of the state coat of arms. More than a hundred scientists and visual artists participated in the competition, presenting around 130 projects. On May 12, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet created a special Commission for the contest, chaired by the Speaker of the Parliament Mircea Snegur.

Following the Commission's decision, on July 18, 1990, the official newspaper "Moldova Socialistă" published 18 coat of arms projects for public discussion, which were displayed in the foyer of the Supreme Soviet building.

After two months of heated public discussions, on September 19, two projects, selected by the Competition Commission, signed by the painters Gheorghe Vrabie and Andrei Mudrea, were published on the pages of "Sovereign Moldova". After the support of Gh. Vrabie's project by the National Commission of Heraldry, Genealogy and Sigilography of the Romanian Academy in the meeting of October 23, 1990, he was joined by the Romanian heraldist Maria Dogaru.

In the meeting of October 30, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the SSR decided to support Gh. Vrabie's project, and on November 3, 1990, the new state coat of arms was adopted by law.

According to paragraph 3 of article 12 of the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova, the State Coat of Arms has the following official description: "The State Coat of Arms of the Republic of Moldova represents a horizontally cut shield, with the upper part colored red, the lower part blue, charged with the head of bour having between the horns an eight-rayed star. The bour's head is flanked to the right by a five-petalled rose, and to the left by an outlined crescent. All elements represented in the shield are gold (yellow). The shield is placed on the breast of a natural eagle carrying in its beak a golden cross (crusaded eagle) and holding in its right claw a green olive branch and in its left a golden scepter".