Member of the Malling-Hansen Society, Uwe Breker of the Auction Team Köln has written this very accurate description of the writing ball. I think his words show very clearly Mr Breker's great admiration and fascination of Rasmus Malling-Hansen's brilliant invention! His description was written in connection with the sale of an extremely well kept writing ball, in the summer of 2007. My information tells that the writing ball was sold for 80.000,- EURO. Note that Uwe Breker refers to the year 1867 in connection with the writing ball. 1867 is an estimation of when the first specimen was finished - but we don't know this with 100 % certainty. What we know is that Malling-Hansen worked on his invention in 1865, and that the actual ball with the keys was worked out at this point. Malling-Hansen got his first patent in Denmark in 1870. During the 1870's and -80's some hundred writing balls were sold, and each specimen was made by hand, by highly skilled mechanics. The writing ball sold by Uwe Breker is a model from 1878, with a colour ribbon.

This fascinating machine, the 1st typewriter in the world produced in series, is historical. Pastor Hans Rasmus Malling Johan Hansen - director of Denmark's deaf-and-dumb institute in Copenhagen - invented this wonderful precision machine: Each of the 54 spring-driven hemispherical typebars slides in a different angle to a tiny central printing pole, which means that every single letter has to be distorted differently. All these letters had to be engraved onto the end of the little typebars which was done at Malling-Hansen's time only by professional copperplate engravers of type foundries for the printing process. These artists are no longer available, as (decades ago) all the world's type foundring companies went out of business when typesetting switched from hot to cold composing (electronics).Technically this 1st typewriter in the world from 1867 already showed all significant refinements of typewriters that were introduced 40-50 years later: space bar, automatic carriage return and line spacing, index for paragraphs or indented lines, bell to signal the end of the line, typing copies by carbon paper, ribbon reverse and - last but not least - visible writing by raising the typing mechanism. - These were and still are sensational technical refinements which were unbeaten for the almost 50 following years. - Not only does the high technical precision work of this Malling-Hansen writing ball fascinate us, its fascinating brass design is also captivating. - From a total of (presumably) 180 machines ever made there are only 4 models left today in private hands (and 2 of them with Moon's blinds' alphabet on the keytops and not useable for ordinary characters' writing). All the others (about 30) are already included in museum collections worldwide, and therefore "lost" for the market and for any private collector. - This model here is in the best condition we've ever seen (!) and absolutely original in all parts and details! The serial number is 97! - The writing ball by Pastor Malling-Hansen has for many years been the world's most expensive historical typewriter with up to euro; 131.00,- (US$ 123,000)! - No doubt that this very 1st typewriter in the world is technically as well as optically the giant showpiece of any advanced collection and exhibition worldwide!