Record Details

Name/TitleStere­o­scope ‘Omni­um’

About this objectL’Omnium is a fold­able pock­et stere­o­scope. The lens pan­el and the stere­oview hold­er are col­lapsi­ble, and the hand­grip can be unscrewed from the view­ing sec­tion. When dis­as­sem­bled, the com­po­nents can be stored in a case, typ­i­cal­ly fin­ished in bur­gundy or black.
(from: Com­pendi­um of Stereoscopes)

Fur­ther read­ing: Stere­oscopy His­to­ry Series — Lucien Bize (A. Ruiter)

Place MadeFrance

Mak­erBize, Lucien

Mak­er RoleDesign­er

Mak­erJacob, Gus­tave

Mak­er RoleMan­u­fac­tur­er

Mak­erDamoy, Julien

Mak­er RolePublisher/Seller

Date Madec. 1905

Tech­niqueSin­gle-view, manually

Tech­niqueFocus, car­ri­er

Peri­od1893–1939

Sub­ject and Asso­ci­a­tion Descrip­tionThe first ver­sion of L’Omnium was designed for paper stere­oviews in var­i­ous for­mats. L’Om­ni­um III was intend­ed for glass stere­oviews in the for­mats 45 x 107 and 6 x 13 and is equipped with a ground glass to dif­fuse trans­mit­ted light. The num­ber­ing implies the exis­tence of an Omni­um II; how­ev­er, no such mod­el is doc­u­ment­ed. The des­ig­na­tion may refer to a vari­ant fit­ted with rec­tan­gu­lar prism lens­es instead of the stan­dard round lenses.
Some L’Omnium stere­o­scopes are housed in cas­es bear­ing the name Julian Damoy. It is often assumed that he was the man­u­fac­tur­er. In fact, Julian Damoy was a Parisian gro­cer who rebrand­ed and dis­trib­uted L’Omnium. L’Omnium was a com­mer­cial­ly suc­cess­ful view­er, and sev­er­al rebrand­ed ver­sions exist.

For­matUni­ver­sal

Object TypeStere­o­scope

Sub­ject and Asso­ci­a­tion Key­wordsFR 340728 (L. Bize, 1904)

Medi­um and Mate­ri­alsPaper or card­board stereo views (Post­cards)

Object num­berM‑SH029

Copy­right LicenceAll rights reserved