Büromaschinen-Museum

About the museum

The Büromaschinen-Museum in the Barsbüttel district of Willinghusen is a private museum run by the Koch family. The collection began in 1974 with a mechanical bookkeeping machine from 1930, which Hartmut Koch rescued from the scrapyard. The trained precision mechanic and optician later worked for various office machine manufacturers, which gave him contacts with industrial development departments and let the collection grow.

Today around 2,500 exhibits fill the upper floor of the residential house, in the open roof space: mechanical and electric typewriters, calculating and bookkeeping machines, slide rules, early computers, and storage media from punch cards to floppy disks. The museum also documents the history of computer processors and shows the development of calculating technology from the ancient counting board to the pocket calculator.

On the garden wall at the entrance lies an enlarged copy of the Salamis marble counting table, the largest surviving counting table from antiquity.

Highlights

• About 2,500 exhibits on office and calculating technology
• Typewriters, calculating machines, and bookkeeping machines
• Early computers, processors, and storage media
• Copy of the ancient Salamis counting table on the garden wall

Permanent exhibition

• Sammlung Büro- und Rechentechnik – Typewriters, calculating and bookkeeping machines, early computers, and storage media from about 100 years of office technology.

Operated by

Privatmuseum der Familie Koch

Admission & discounts

Admission is free.

Accessibility

The museum hasn’t published any information on this.

Kids & families

The museum hasn’t published any information on this.

Getting there & parking

The museum hasn’t published any information on this.

Amenities & dining

The museum hasn’t published any information on this.

Events & venue rental

The museum hasn’t published any information on this.

Plan your visit