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Subject: Dead Media Working Note 01.1
Dead Medium: The Magic Lantern
From: bruces_AT_well.com (Bruce Sterling)
Source: Peck and Snyder's Catalog (aka "Price List of
Out & Indoor Sports and Pastimes") 1886, reprinted 1971
by Pyne Press (LC# 75-24886, ISBN 0-87861-094-4)
Mssrs Peck and Snyder offered at least 47 distinct
varieties of magic lantern (as well as the Polyopticon
and the Megascope, intriguing variants of magic lantern
technology). The large variety of Peck and Snyder's own
product rose from clever recombination of the magic
lantern's basic elements: the body, the base, the
reflector, the condenser, the lens tube, the smoke-stack
and the lamp. The materials could be cheap japanned tin,
or luxuriant brass; the lenses cheap or precise; the lamps
powerful and dangerous, or weak and relatively safe.
Some few magic lanterns were imported: "Wrench's
Celebrated London Make Magic Lanterns", the "Favorite
German Lantern," and the "New Style French Magic Lantern."
The following sample excerpts from Peck and Snyder
advertising copy will show how these manufactured variants
addressed different purposes and different demographic
slices of the magic lantern media market. My commentary
is in (((triple parens))).
(((The Professional's Model)))
Electro Radiant Lantern, No. 10. The construction of this
lantern is such as to especially commend it to exhibitors.
(...) A set of Achromatic Object Glasses, as used in No.
10 Lantern, is made up of four lenses of the finest and
most accurately ground *Crown* and *Flint Glasses,* a
*concave* lens of *Flint* with a convex lens of *Crown*
glass are paired in cells and placed at the proper
distance apart in the focusing tube. The effect on the
screen is to bring out a very sharp and well-defined
image, free from blurred edges, prismatic color, etc.,
which invariably accompany the use of plano, or concavo-
convex lenses. (...) It accommodates slides of all makes
now in vogue and is thoroughly well-adapted for dissolving
effects.
((("Dissolving effects" or "dissolving views" required
the use of dual magic lanterns, projecting two images into
the same circle on the screen. With "a simple mechanical
arrangement," two different projected images could
apparently dissolve into and emerge from one another.
This impressive gimmick led Peck and Snyder to sell their
magic lanterns, including the No. 10, in matched pairs.
As the unknown copywriter rhapsodized, "The most beautiful
effects that can possibly be produced... The effect is
indescribably impressive."))
(((The Art Model.)))
(((The Electro Radiant Sketching Lantern pursued an
application for the artists' market. It was essentially
identical to the No. 10 model, but came without any
bundled lanternware.)))
"Artists can save many hours of work and attain great
accuracy of expression by using in connection with our
Sketching Lantern a photographic negative of the subject
to be produced. (...) The picture may be thrown onto the
paper or canvas, anywhere from miniature to twice life
size. (...) The sketching may be done by a boy or girl,
saving the artists' time and talent (...) If the artist
is not a photographer, an arrangement can generally be
made with some photographer to furnish at a low figure a
negative plate."
(((The Kid Media Model. Note the free-and-easy attitude
toward child employment.)))
ELECTRO RADIANT MAGIC LANTERN NO. 3.
This Lantern was designed Especially for Youths, not only
for its remarkable effects on the screen, but also for its
limited effects on the pocket. (...)
With a No. 3 Lantern a boy may amuse a party of friends,
or he may, by charging a small admission fee, earn
considerable for any object he may set his heart on.
(...) An ingenious boy will have tickets of admission,
programmes, music of some sort and numberless little
devices to heighten the theatrical, magical and mysterious
effect. (...) All devices he will execute himself,
filling leisure hours in writing out his tickets and
programmes and making other arrangements to make his
exhibition a success. (...) Parents and friends should
not ignore the instruction and other beneficial effects,
and should by all means make their young people owners of
a Lantern.
(((The No. 3 cost only eight dollars. The very similar
No. 4 model was sold without a smokestack or chimney
burner for a mere six dollars, though this must have
increased the fire hazard considerably.)))
(((The Luxury Model)))
THE IMPROVED TRIPLEXICON, 100 CANDLE POWER.
Price Complete in a Strong Wooden Box, $35.00
The chimney, which connects with the flame chamber, is
made in two parts, one sliding into the other, telescope
fashion. This allows of the most exact regulation of the
current of air supplied to the flame to effect perfect
combustion. (...)
The body of the lantern (...) may be handled as
comfortably, after being two hours in operation, as at the
beginning of the exhibition. The reservoir, which will
hold enough oil for two and a half hours' work, is
*completely* out of reach of the heat. (...)
*Particular* care has been taken in the mounting of the
lenses to allow for their expansion by heat, thus avoiding
the liability of breakage (...) a brilliance and
clearness of outline to be surpassed only be the best
limelight stereopticons.
(((To the modern skeptical eye these oily assurances of
comfort and safety conjure up dire vistas of soot-
blackened parlors, badly scorched boy-entrepreneurs, and
audiences explosively drenched in sheets of flaming
kerosene.)))
I believe this to be a complete list of Peck and Snyder's
magic lantern models as offered in the 1886 catalog:
The Electro Radiant No. 2, 2A, 2B, 2C, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, and
10.
The New Improved Duplex Magic Lantern, Nos. 1 and 2.
Magic Lantern 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 21, 22, 26, 30,
32, 36, 38, 40, 42, 44, 46, 48.
Wrench's Celebrated London Make Magic Lantern. Nos. 1, 2,
3, 4, 5, 6, 8.
The Favorite German Lantern.
New French Style Magic Lanterns Nos 814, 815, 816, 817,
818, 819.
The Improved Triplexicon.
The Gem Magic Lantern.
The wonder of it is that Peck and Snyder must have had a
great many competitors. This catalog offers only a
glimpse of what must have been an enormous market.
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| 04.1-06.0 | 06.1-08.0 |
08.1-10.0 | 10.1-12.0 |