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#Exhibit of the Month

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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

January 2021

Coin hoard from Caracușenii Vechi, Briceni District

The hoard was found in 1957 during the agricultural works near the village. At first, the hoard was in the collection of the National Museum of Ethnography and Natural History and later was transferred to the National Museum of History (Accession: FB: 12 576 - 12650; N: 12 658 - 12 732). It consists of 75 silver coins from the thaler category issued by the Kingdom of Poland, the United Provinces and the Holy Roman Empire in 1612-1648.

THE KINGDOM OF POLAND
Sigismund II Vasa (1586-1632)
Crown, thaler: 1628 (1).
Gdańsk, orts: 1612 (1), 1613 (1*), 1614 (1), 1615 (7), 1616 (8), 1617 (16), 1618 (4), 1619 (2), 161 (1), 1620 (2), 1621 (8).

THE UNITED PROVINCES OF THE NETHERLANDS
Lion thalers (leeuwendaalder)
Gelderland: 1641 (1), 1647 (2), 1649 (1).
West Frisia: 1648 (1).
Utrecht: 1643 (1), 1646 (1), 1647 (2), 1648 (1).

THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE
Kampen: halve leeuwendaalder 1646 (1), 1647 (1); leeuwendaalder 1647 (3), 1649 (1).
Zwolle: leeuwendaalder 1633 (1), 1637 (3), 1644 (1), 1646 (2), 1648 (1).

This hoard by its composition confirms the presence of silver coins from the thaler category in the Principality of Moldavia monetary circulation.

Thalers were first minted in 1486 in Sankt-Joachimsthal, today the Czech Republic, "thaler" being an abbreviation of "Joachimsthaler", meaning coin issued in Sankt-Joachimsthal. In the 16th and 17th centuries, thalers were issued in very large quantities, especially by state entities that were part of the Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburg Empire. Thus, thalers can be considered a quintessentially popular coin; there are thalers of several types, such as Austrian thalers, Polish thalers, Russian thalers, Turkish thalers, Venetian thalers, also called scuzi, "reichsthalers", also called imperials, löwenthalers or lion thalers, and Spanish thalers, also called piastre. In the Romanian principalities, thalers spread widely towards the end of the 16th century, and in the following centuries their circulation became very abundant, the thaler being in circulation until the second half of the 19th century. This money was a huge success, so it is also called: daalder / daler in the Netherlands, talar in Poland, dahlar in Scandinavia, tallaro / tallero in Italy, talari in Ethiopia, dollar in America. A special category is the Dutch thaler, leeuwendaalder, löwenthaler, which means "lion thaler", also called "lion" due to the coat of arms on the reverse, which is a shield with a crown, with a lion inside; it is a silver coin minted in Netherlands, where in 1575 it was decided to mint a new coin based on the scuzi. In the Romanian principalities the lion thaler appears in the last quarter of the 16th century. These lion thaler gave the name to the currency of Romania, the Republic of Moldova (leu), and Bulgaria (leva).

Orts are also silver coins from the thaler category, equal to 1/4 thaler. A quarter thaler was originally called "ortstaler", a name that was later reduced to the form "ort" (in Old German "ort" means "a quarter"). The coin circulated in Europe in the Middle Ages, including the Romanian principalities, being met in the 18th century as Polish, Turkish and German orts. The term "ort" is preserved in the Romanian expression "to give an ort to a priest" (which means "to die"), which dates back to the ancient pagan custom of placing a coin on the little finger of the deceased's right hand so that he could pay for the passage to the afterlife; With the same coin, the priest was paid for the funeral service: the family of the deceased "gave an ort to the priest" to observe church traditions.



 

 


Independent Moldova
Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic
Bessarabia and MASSR between the Two World Wars
Bessarabia and Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in the Period between the Two World Wars
Revival of National Movement
Time of Reforms and their Consequences
Abolition of Autonomy. Bessarabia – a New Tsarist Colony
Period of Relative Autonomy of Bessarabia within the Russian Empire
Phanariot Regime
Golden Age of the Romanian Culture
Struggle for Maintaining of Independence of Moldova
Formation of Independent Medieval State of Moldova
Era of the
Great Nomad Migrations
Early Middle Ages
Iron Age and Antiquity
Bronze Age
Aeneolithic Age
Neolithic Age
Palaeolithic Age
  
  

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#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...

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The National Museum of History of Moldova takes place among the most significant museum institutions of the Republic of Moldova, in terms of both its collection and scientific reputation.
©2006-2025 National Museum of History of Moldova
Visit museum 31 August 1989 St., 121 A, MD 2012, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova
Phones:
Secretariat: +373 (22) 24-43-25
Department of Public Relations and Museum Education: +373 (22) 24-04-26
Fax: +373 (22) 24-43-69
E-mail: office@nationalmuseum.md
Technical Support: info@nationalmuseum.md
Web site administration and maintenance: Andrei EMILCIUC

 



The National Museum of History of Moldova takes place among the most significant museum institutions of the Republic of Moldova, in terms of both its collection and scientific reputation.
©2006-2025 National Museum of History of Moldova
Visit museum 31 August 1989 St., 121 A, MD 2012, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova
Phones:
Secretariat: +373 (22) 24-43-25
Department of Public Relations and Museum Education: +373 (22) 24-04-26
Fax: +373 (22) 24-43-69
E-mail: office@nationalmuseum.md
Technical Support: info@nationalmuseum.md
Web site administration and maintenance: Andrei EMILCIUC

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The National Museum of History of Moldova takes place among the most significant museum institutions of the Republic of Moldova, in terms of both its collection and scientific reputation.
©2006-2025 National Museum of History of Moldova
Visit museum 31 August 1989 St., 121 A, MD 2012, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova
Phones:
Secretariat: +373 (22) 24-43-25
Department of Public Relations and Museum Education: +373 (22) 24-04-26
Fax: +373 (22) 24-43-69
E-mail: office@nationalmuseum.md
Technical Support: info@nationalmuseum.md
Web site administration and maintenance: Andrei EMILCIUC