Record Details

Name/TitleTray-Stere­o­scope ‘Stéréo-Auto-Classeur “Astra“ ‘

About this objectL’Astra is the largest of Bize’s designs. The slide tray mech­a­nism of L’Astra dif­fers from typ­i­cal stere­o­scopes. Instead of a tray car­riage mov­ing over a rail, L’Astra uses a gear sys­tem embed­ded in the base plate, with the tray fea­tur­ing grooves. The rotat­ing gear moves the tray smooth­ly for­ward, ensur­ing pre­cise posi­tion­ing of the slides. A tray can hold 24 slides. A knob on the left side allows nav­i­ga­tion to a spe­cif­ic slide.
The base of the view­er con­tains two draw­ers with 3 trays each result­ing in 144 slides in total.
Lat­er mod­els of L’Astra were designed to sup­port the view­ing of autochromes, with a spe­cial mech­a­nism to accom­mo­date the thick­er glass plates used for col­or slides. There was also a ver­sion for 45x107mm slides.
In-depth infor­ma­tion on ‘L’As­tra’ and Bize can be found on André Ruiter’s blog: Astra

Place MadeFrance

Mak­erBize, Lucien

Mak­er RoleMan­u­fac­tur­er

Date Madec. 1913

Series TitleAstra

Tech­niqueMul­ti-view, tray-based

Tech­niqueFocus, lens board

Peri­od1893–1939

Sub­ject and Asso­ci­a­tion Descrip­tionLucien Albert Bize was a pio­neer in com­pact stere­o­scope inno­va­tion in ear­ly 20th-cen­tu­ry France. In 1908, he intro­duced ‘Le Min­imus’ and ‘Le Mul­ti­phote’, both fea­tur­ing an inge­nious sim­ple mech­a­nism. Bize’s stere­o­scopes were ini­tial­ly man­u­fac­tured by Mai­son Gus­tave Jacob in Paris until Jacob’s bank­rupt­cy in 1911. Pro­duc­tion con­tin­ued under Bize until he sold his com­pa­ny to Robert Pleyau in 1913. The more con­ven­tion­al ‘L’As­tra’ was intro­duced in 1913 even though the patent was still reg­is­tered by Bize in 1912. The man­u­fac­tur­ing of Bize’s stere­o­scopes like­ly ceased dur­ing World War I.

For­mat6x13cm

Object TypeStere­o­scope

Sub­ject and Asso­ci­a­tion Key­wordsFR 463687 (L. Bize, 1912)

Medi­um and Mate­ri­alsGlass Slides

Object num­berM‑ST004

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