Record Details

Name/TitleTray-Stere­o­scope ‘Le Tax­iphote, mod­èle sim­pli­fié’ with Stor­age Base

About this objectA bake­lite tray con­tain­ing 25 glass slides can be insert­ed by flip­ping down the front of the view­er. Then, by turn­ing a crank on the right side of the hous­ing, one slide after anoth­er can be exam­ined. On the left side of the view­er, there is a counter which indi­cates the num­ber of the slide and allows nav­i­ga­tion to a spe­cif­ic slide while the cen­tre knob is pressed. There is also a small­er knob on the left which serves to swing aside a black mask inside the view­er allow­ing the slide title to be read.
The base of the view­er con­tains three draw­ers with four trays each, mak­ing it pos­si­ble to store a total of 300 slides. The base is not attached to the view­er so it can be removed if desired.
In-depth infor­ma­tion on the Tax­iphote can be found here: Le Tax­iphote — the most famous French stereo viewer

Place MadeFrance

Mak­erRichard, Jules

Mak­er RoleMan­u­fac­tur­er

Mak­erColardeau, Louis

Mak­er RoleDesign­er

Date Madec. 1910

Series TitleTax­iphote

Tech­niqueMul­ti-view, tray-based

Tech­niqueFocus, lens tubes

Peri­od1893–1939

Sub­ject and Asso­ci­a­tion Descrip­tionShort­ly after the suc­cess of the ‘Véras­cope’ stereo­scop­ic cam­era, Jules Richard and his engi­neer Louis Colardeau patent­ed the first mod­el as ‘Stéréo-Classeur’ in 1899 and start­ed pro­duc­tion in the same year. It was renamed as ‘Le Tax­iphote’ in 1900 and remained in pro­duc­tion for around 40 years. The patent for the ‘Mod­èle sim­pli­fié’ was applied for in 1907 and 1908 and was grant­ed in Jan­u­ary 1909. It was intro­duced as a nov­el­ty in the 1908 cat­a­logue and was also list­ed as ‘Mod­èle 1908’ for a while. 
The sim­pli­fied mod­el was avail­able in waxed wal­nut or pol­ished mahogany. Accord­ing to its ser­i­al num­ber, the view­er illus­trat­ed was pro­duced between 1908 and 1910.
The new crank mech­a­nism is quite com­fort­able to use com­pared to the com­mon lever mech­a­nism found in the oth­er mod­els. How­ev­er, the ‘Mod­èle sim­pli­fié’ was also announced to be the most afford­able mod­el and there­fore always lacks any milled edges. The view­er illus­trat­ed is the very cheap­est ver­sion which comes even with­out the adjustable ocu­lar distance.

For­mat45x107mm

Object TypeStere­o­scope

Sub­ject and Asso­ci­a­tion Key­wordsFR 3503 (L. Colardeau, J. Richard, 1899)

Sub­ject and Asso­ci­a­tion Key­wordsFR 395552 (J. Richard, 1907/09)

Sub­ject and Asso­ci­a­tion Key­wordsFR 9955 (J. Richard, 1908/09)

Medi­um and Mate­ri­alsGlass Slides

Object num­berM‑ST065

Copy­right LicenceAll rights reserved