The Senta portable typewriter was designed by

Franz Kraudzun, who was born in Königsberg in Prussia on July 20, 1885.

According to Ernst Martin, Kraudzun spent many years trying to find a company to make his typewriters.

 

Eventually, long-established sewing machine manufacturers Frister & Rossmann Aktiengesellschaft, of Berlin, produced Kraudzun's first model Senta, a three-bank portable, from 1913.

 

From 1921 the Senta was also marketed as the Presto by a Dresden company and in Bulgaria as the Balkan.

 

 

In 1926, the Model 4 Senta, with a four-bank keyboard, reached the market, but its lifespan was short, as Frister & Rossmann AG went into liquidation in 1929.

 

 

Arnold Betzwieser Collection

Frister & Rossmann AG had branched into typewriters in 1892, when it gained the rights to reproduce the Caligraph under its own name. It also sold Lee Burridge's Sun and Ed Hess's Royal Standard through to the Model 10.