The ‘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.