Andreas Hamm Guillotine - Frankenthal, Germany
Age: 1877, Cutting width: 60 cm (23 5/8")
Andreas Hamm was a bell maker who in 1850 founded a foundry in Frankenthal, which would become Heidelberg. In addition to bells, the foundry also produced castings for various machines, and with his partner, Andreas Albert, it began to cast and built cylinder presses. Hamm and Albert parted company in 1873. Hamm continued with the production of bells and machinery until his death in 1894. In 1895, Hamm's son, who succeeded his father, relocated the foundry to the town of Heidelberg.
After the separation from his partner in 1873, Hamm continued to produce bells and various machines, including guillotines represented at the Howard Iron Works Museum by our 1877 Hamm guillotine. This guillotine is a hand-lever type, and carry the design that was very common in Germany at the time. It bears a very close resemblance to other German machine such as Krause. One surmises this two-lever acorn shaped guillotine was state-of-the-art back then.
The Hamm Guillotine holds a rich and interesting history and significance as being possibly the oldset Heidelberg in North America, and possibly the world.
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