This is a Flemish heavy rampant crossbow with the pull of a so-called English elevator.
The crossbow represents a type of western European heavy infantry crossbow, used for sieges or the defence of the cities. It is a late variant in which structural improvements were applied — a movable viewfinder was introduced and the trigger lever was modified. According to the sixteenth-century chronicles, the effectiveness of this type of crossbow was tremendous. A good crossbowman could strike an unarmoured opponent at a distance of 650 steps, with a speed of one shot per minute.

James Hammond obtained a patent for the construction of the machine in 1881, and its serial production began in 1884. The presented model 12 was created in the early 20^th century in two versions; one was characterized by an arched two-row keyboard, typical of the early Hammonds; and the second, with a three-row keyboard, was typical for three-register machines. The final version, seen in the presented object, was introduced at the end of the nineteenth century along with the growing competition of lever-typing machines, with a typical arrangement of keys in straight rows.

An eccentric and a visionary. A genius and discoverer. But, above all, Nikola Tesla was an inventor, holding almost 300 patents, patents which protected his 125 inventions in several dozen countries around the world. His inventions have completely changed human civilisation. It is also worth remembering that he was almost forgotten, deceived and ridiculed in his own lifetime. Others stole his ideas and he was unable to turn them into a financial success.

The Bar-Lock typewriter is a patented design by the inventor and lawyer Charles Spiro in 1888. The presented model 10, was produced from 1900, under the brand Columbia Bar-Lock (in the United States) and Royal Bar-Lock in the British market. The keyboard used in the presented model is full, provided with 78 typing keys and one function key. The keyboard, constructed in this way, was adapted to English characters. For the needs of the non-English market, machines were produced with a set of 86 keys and only under the Royal Bar-Lock brand.

Brunsviga 13 is a manual mechanical calculating machine (arithmometer) with a 13-position counter. Arithmometers were patented in the 19^th century in France and were designed to perform addition and subtraction, whereas multiplication and division could be conducted by several operations of adding and subtracting. They were driven manually (with a crank or a lever).

A wooden table on metal wheels, doubling as a palette for mural painting, designed by Wacław Taranczewski. In the years1948–1970, the artist held the post of a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, managing the faculty of decorative painting.

What is this medal made of? It seems as if it was made of brass, from some artillery shell? From that distant war? And what beautiful curves Skinny Emma has: a heavy 305 millimetres howitzer from the Škoda factory. It’s a bit like a clockwork mechanism and a steam machine to boot. Because, in those days, even killing machines incorporated beauty and grace. So much that you wanted to touch them. Hence the female names: Fat Bertha or our Emma.

In the history of photography technique, there are many solutions enabling an improvement to photographic techniques.
The first methods of obtaining photographic negatives (from the 1850s) required the use of glass plates coated with a layer of collodion, which, at the time of shooting, was still wet. After the plate had been covered with a layer of collodion and sensitized in a proper bath, the photographer had only a few minutes to slide it into a cassette placed on the back of the camera and expose it.

The stereoscopic viewer of Brewster’s system for stereoscopic photos (slides), in the single 7 x 7 cm image format, was manufactured in Austria-Hungary in the early twentieth century...