Record Details

Name/TitleTray-Stere­o­scope ‘Planox Rotatif’

About this objectFour bake­lite trays con­tain­ing 25 glass slides each can be insert­ed through a flap on the left side of the view­er. These trays are bent by 90 degrees and are arranged to form a drum. Then, by mov­ing a small knob, locat­ed on the right side, up and down, the drum slow­ly rotates and one slide after anoth­er can be exam­ined. The slides are pulled up by mag­nets which con­nect to met­al strips attached to the glass slides. On the right side of the view­er, a brass arrow will point to the num­ber of the cur­rent slide on a cir­cu­lar scale. A large knob in the cen­ter of the scale allows nav­i­ga­tion to a spe­cif­ic slide. For that, the knob has to be stopped at an inter­me­di­ate posi­tion, which unlocks the tray move­ment. This posi­tion is also required to exchange the trays.

Place MadeFrance

Mak­erPlocq, Albéric-Alfred

Mak­er RoleMan­u­fac­tur­er

Mak­erNoel, Mod­este

Mak­er RoleDesign­er

Date Madec. 1930

Series TitlePlanox

Tech­niqueMul­ti-view, tray-based

Tech­niqueFocus, lens board

Peri­od1893–1939

Sub­ject and Asso­ci­a­tion Descrip­tionThe ‘Planox Stéréo­scope Mag­né­tique’ was one of the most pop­u­lar French stereo view­ers and is notable for its inno­v­a­tive mag­net­ic mech­a­nism. The basic idea was devel­oped by Mod­este Noel, who reg­is­tered his patents in 1913 and 1914. Alexan­dre Plocq was like­ly the first to use Noel’s inven­tion for pro­duc­tion mod­els. The draw­ings of a third patent in 1920, again by Noel, show the sim­pli­fied mech­a­nism found in the view­ers that were actu­al­ly produced.
In 1923, Ploc­q’s son Albéric-Alfred and Noel reg­is­tered anoth­er patent incor­po­rat­ing the drum-like exten­sion of the low­er part of the mech­a­nism which iden­ti­fies the ‘Planox Rotatif’. The illus­trat­ed view­er is the lat­er design, intro­duced with the ‘Planox Uni­versel’ in the lat­er 1920’s. How­ev­er, accord­ing to cat­a­logue draw­ings, the design of the ‘Planox Rotatif’ was­n’t updat­ed until 1930.

For­mat6x13cm

Object TypeStere­o­scope

Sub­ject and Asso­ci­a­tion Key­wordsFR 23679 (M. Noel, 1920/21)

Sub­ject and Asso­ci­a­tion Key­wordsFR 565336 (M. Noel, A.-A. Plocq, 1923/24)

Medi­um and Mate­ri­alsglass slides (with met­al stripes)

Object num­berM‑ST008

Copy­right LicenceAll rights reserved