Sailing away on the Ship of Theseus

March 1, 2013 11:41 AM

I'm taking up restoration of mechanical calculators as a hobby. To what extent would repairs/part replacements constitute "restoration", and when does it become "reproduction" instead?

So I'm a big fan of old-fashioned mechanical calculators (Odhner pinwheels, Monroe stepped drums, etc.) and I've recently started collecting them. Of course, if you collect them, you also have to repair the all-too-frequent ravages of time, most of which is just a good cleaning, but there are definitely ways to improve them which involve significant material changes.

Some things I'm thinking of: replacing screws (which I have no real qualms about doing when they're stripped or missing, but replacement of functional but worn screws comes under the heading of not-wholly-necessary part replacement), repainting covers (if I can find paint that matches the original), and if absolutely necessary machining whole replacement parts (in particular, I'm half-tempted to try to work up a more durable cover for my cracked Nippon HL-21)

Now, I might be overanalyzing this, given that they're my own objects and I can do whatever I like to them and call it "restoration", but I'm rather proud of having these things in their proper historical context, and I'm mindful of the fact that reproducing a historical object is different from repairing an authentic object from that time. Basically, I'm trying to avoid accidentally building the calculator of Theseus here. So what, in most people's minds, would constitute ethical "restoration" of an object, and to what extent would replacement of elements be something that would be appropriate to disclose when displaying them (or mandatory to disclose if selling them)?

posted by jackbishop to sports, hobbies, & recreation (2 answers total)

I'm not an antique collector, a historian or a restorer, so I'm not aware of the standards of those communities on this sort of thing. Here's my take as a BA in philosophy.

How about a standard like:

"A 'restored calculator' contains the calculator-specific parts of only one factory-produced calculator."

I offer this standard because it allows you to address appearance concerns like worn screws or chipped paint, which are aesthetic considerations that I believe fall under the umbrella of restoration, while side-stepping some of the identity concerns that come with with replacement parts.

Replacement parts are complicated, as they seem to fall into one of two buckets:

1. Replacement parts coming from another factory-produced calculator of that type, which means blending the parts of two formerly independent things into one. This hybridization strikes me as reproduction; you've created a new thing from the parts of two old ones.*

2. Replacement parts that were made specifically as replacement parts, which themselves are fall into two buckets:
a. period replacement parts, assuming they exist for these calculators
b. modern replacement parts

A. seems unambiguously acceptable as a restoration - these parts are from the same era and were designed to replace worn or damaged parts. I don't see a problem with plugging in those parts (from approximately the same time period) and calling it restoration, although I'm not sure how available this parts really are (if at all).

B. seems more complicated. On the one hand, you're not running into the identity problems with using parts from an different machine. But then again, here you're fashioning new parts, which sounds awfully like 'producing' something from the past today, or reproduction.

The more I think about it, the more it seems you're on an x-y axis, where y is the mechanical/physical ideal (this object I've modified looks and works as it did when this sort of object was originally made) and x is the the amount of modification needed to achieve y, and you have to decide where on this diagonal you're comfortable being.

So call what you do restoration and do as much to them as you feel comfortable with. Let's say 'reproduction' is like pornography was to that Supreme Court justice - you just know it when you see it.

(Not sure what I've given you here, but I have played around with this for quite a while. Thanks for the thought exercise, I forgot how hard philosophy can be. I hope you get some more responses on this.)

*But then again, have you? If there's a missing handle but the calculator could be used without it (i.e., a missing handle doesn't harm its function but it does harm its appearance), and one could either replace it with a handle from another calculator or craft one's own new handle, which is the reproduction and which is the restoration? Crafting a new handle seems a reproduction, but so does replacing it with an old one from a separate calculator. Meanwhile, leaving it as is hardly counts as a restoration. And how is the new handle, which is not essential to the calculator's function but is to its aesthetics, any different from the worn screws?

Ugh, after thinking about this for too long, I now hear Keanu saying 'What is real? How do you define real?' in my head. I'm officially adrift on the ship of Theseus.
posted by charlemangy at 3:07 PM on March 1

Then again, re: that asterisked portion:

Perhaps this can be framed as a concern of localized restoration / reproduction versus total restoration / reproduction.

Assuming a dearth of adequate replacement parts made at the same time as your calculator, when replacing the handle, or anything else, you can either:

A. take it from another calculator and add it to your own, thus restoring the handle (this is an original handle, not a reproduction) but rendering the piece a reproduction (the calculator as a whole is not one calculator modified but parts of two or more, combined).

Or: B. fashion your own - the replaced piece is itself a reproduction of handles of the era, but the the calculator as a whole has been restored.

Perhaps fashioning reproduction constituent pieces in the service of keeping the whole calculator a restoration is then the answer, as you're already doing that with, say, the paint (i.e., painting it is part of restoration, but the paint is a reproduction [well, the effect of the paint is a reproduction]). Of course, at some point, too many reproduction pieces turns the restoration into a reproduction, and around and around we go.
posted by charlemangy at 3:49 PM on March 1