Record Details

Name/TitleTray-Stere­o­scope, spe­cial focus feature

About this objectThe wood­en trays con­tain 25 slides each and can be insert­ed into the view­er by flip­ping back its top. Then, by turn­ing a crank on the right side of the hous­ing, one slide after anoth­er can be exam­ined. Each half-turn of the crank advances or returns the slides and moves the tray for­ward. A knob on the front serves for focussing by mov­ing the entire view­ing mech­a­nism inside the hous­ing back and forth.
This view­er seems to be an unique piece of his­to­ry, though close­ly con­nect­ed to the ‘Hemdé’ view­ers which are already among the rar­er tray-stereoscopes.
In-depth infor­ma­tion on ‘Hemdé’ and their view­ers can be found on André Ruiter’s blog: Hemdé

Place MadeFrance

Mak­erHemdé

Mak­er Roleattrib­uted to

Date Madec. 1905

Tech­niqueMul­ti-view, tray-based

Tech­niqueFocus, car­ri­er

Peri­od1893–1939

Sub­ject and Asso­ci­a­tion Descrip­tionThough it appears fair­ly com­mon, this stere­o­scope holds a unique place in stereo­scop­ic history.
A hall­mark of ‘Hemdé’ view­ers was their wood­en slide trays, but their true inno­va­tion lay in the crank mech­a­nism. Using a clev­er­ly thread­ed rod, it both lift­ed slides into posi­tion and moved the tray, enabling smooth for­ward and back­ward nav­i­ga­tion. The mech­a­nism was patent­ed in 1907 by Paul Sorel, Émile Cuny, and Mau­rice Delécaille.
The view­er illus­trat­ed fea­tures both ele­ments, though it lacks any brand­ing. How­ev­er, its design sug­gests it pre­dates the patent. Com­pared to lat­er mass-pro­duced mod­els, the mech­a­nism of this view­er is stur­dier, with more wood­en struts — sug­gest­ing it was still in devel­op­ment. The strongest indi­ca­tion that it is an ear­ly, short-lived pro­to­type is its unique focussing method: by mov­ing the entire inside, a high­ly uncom­mon fea­ture among tray stereoscopes.

For­mat45x107mm

Object TypeStere­o­scope

Sub­ject and Asso­ci­a­tion Key­wordsFR380115 (É. Cuny, P. Sorel, M. Delé­caille, 1907)

Medi­um and Mate­ri­alsGlass Slides

Object num­berM‑ST087

Copy­right LicenceAll rights reserved