Record Details

Name/TitleTray-Stere­o­scope ‘Métas­cope Spé­cial à foy­er court’ with Orig­i­nal Stor­age cabinet 

About this objectTo place a slide tray, the lid on the top and the front pan­el must be opened. The lever that loads the slides is in the down posi­tion and locked. After the slide tray is insert­ed, the lever is unlocked and moves upward. The first stere­oview is posi­tioned in front of the lens­es. The slides are dis­played one by one by push­ing the lever down repeat­ed­ly. An indi­ca­tor on the right side of the device shows which slide is loaded. With the lever in the locked posi­tion, the indi­ca­tor can also be used to quick­ly nav­i­gate to a spe­cif­ic image.
(from: Com­pendi­um of Stereoscopes)

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

Place MadeFrance

Mak­erMat­tey

Mak­er RoleMan­u­fac­tur­er

Mak­erUnis France

Mak­er RoleMan­u­fac­tur­er

Date Madec. 1926

Tech­niqueMul­ti-view, tray-based

Tech­niqueFocus, lens board

Peri­od1893–1939

Sub­ject and Asso­ci­a­tion Descrip­tionLe Métas­cope was one of the last tray-based designs that was intro­duced in France, and dif­fer­ent mod­els were avail­able. The frost­ed glass at the back of the device is used to illu­mi­nate the glass slides and can be removed to attach an option­al pro­jec­tion lantern or elec­tric illu­mi­na­tor. In this case, a larg­er frost­ed glass is mount­ed inside the device to replace the removed glass plate.
The stan­dard mod­el sup­port­ed inter­change­able trays for 45 x 107 and 6 x 13 / 7 x 13 slides, so mul­ti­ple stere­oview for­mats could be viewed with a sin­gle device. It was there­fore called Métas­cope Universel.
A small­er mod­el for 
45 x 107 slides only was named Métas­cope Spéciale.
Both mod­els were also avail­able “à foy­er court”, i.e. with short focus lens­es for bet­ter mag­ni­fi­ca­tion of the slides.
Dif­fer­ent stor­age com­part­ments were avail­able, rang­ing from small pedestal to a piece of fur­ni­ture. The so called Méta­m­a­gasin was offered in lat­er cat­a­logues and had a three draw­er stor­age com­part­ment per­ma­nent­ly attached.

For­mat45x107mm

Object TypeStere­o­scope

Sub­ject and Asso­ci­a­tion Key­wordsFR 610736 (A. Mat­tey, 1926)

Medi­um and Mate­ri­alsglass slides

Object num­berM‑SF010

Copy­right LicenceAll rights reserved