1870s Limelight Magic Lantern 2 Barrel Theatrical

This item sold and moved to France!

The framework of this projector is assembled as scientific apparatus, using chemistry stand fittings which were the science tinker-toys of the day. Everything is adjustable. Brass & brass plated lens barrels, steel, nickel-plated steel, leather, rubber and wood. 3x3" slide aperture. Adjustable, extendable bellows, internal blackout doors, lens caps, gas valve, front elevation legs, rear feet.
The hardwood base plate looks very much like the extension for a large field camera. The framework is attached to the baseplate by just two screws. The front feet, when extended, rest on little metal slides.

Flaws:
No manufacturer identification
Missing rotational gear for upper quicklime holder.
No slide changing trays.
Rubber tubing has petrified.
The high-carbon sheet-steel enclosure doors for the limelight show signs of rusting on upper portions - very light, non-penetrating rust. The upper doors has been forced closed and bent when I acquired this in 1998, a situation due to the framework being out of adjustment. I have made the small adjustment, and now the cutouts on the bottom of the doors fit the frame as they should.
The main element in both lenses appears to be a composite lens - (2 lenses adhered together along a common flat surface.) The adhesive is apparently oxidizing, leaving a 1/4" silver-grey ring around the upper lens element, and a 1/2"+ ring of golden materiel, and crystalline sparkles that intrude further.

Observations:
I get the feeling that this was expertly assembled from parts - but parts only readily available in the 1870s, made and used then. It has also clearly seen some use, and was probably built for the large magic lantern shows held in theaters - this is late victorian period - just before the advent of movies. (Limelight is a remarkably bright light source, only replaced by arc lighting in the 1880s.) The movies killed the magic lantern rage very quickly, although some magic lanterns continued to be used for showing stills and ads between movies.

About Magic Lantern shows:
By 1895 there were between 30,000 and 60,000 lantern showmen in the United States, giving between 75,000 and 150,000 performances a year. These shows in larger venues than one's parlor used these types of larger devices, like the four-burner above, and were the blue-ray of the day. Topics ranged from history, travel, victorian edu-tainment and even political events. Everyone was scrambling to get the "toy" home version. Soon the slides and stories got cranked out at a fever pitch. And then came the movies. And we all sort of forgot about slides, unless visiting the in-laws, until Bill Gates reinvented them.

"Limelight (also known as calcium light) is a type of stage lighting once used in theatres and music halls. An intense illumination is created when an oxyhydrogen flame is directed at a cylinder of quicklime (calcium oxide),[2] which can be heated to 2572 °C before melting. The light is produced by a combination of incandescence and candoluminescence. Although it has long since been replaced by electric lighting, the term has nonetheless survived, as someone in the public eye is still said to be "in the limelight." The actual lights are called limes, a term which has been transferred to electrical equivalents." = Wikipedia

Available on ebay: http:/myworld.ebay.com/eidolon57

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Limelight
• victorian
• 1870
• apparatus
• magic