Autocosmoscope - great name

[gameswat]

While I was looking in the PennyMachines Patent list I tried to find the Patent for this machine but it didn't appear to be there. Originally made by Haydon & Urry 1896. The mechanism is practically identical to my 1937 Bollands art deco Auto Stereoscope. Other than a missing rod for the belt of stereo cards to run on I have the whole machine, well, except for the marquee, and the holes are there to prove it. There's a photo in Costa's book page 196 showing the complete machine. Marquee appears to be wood but does anybody else have one for me to copy?? Thanks!

[grabber]

You could try the British Library - they have a lot of patents, or the Patent Office phone number from 118118.

[pennymachines]

Do you have the patent number for it or are you just assuming it was patented?
According to Costa, the first coin-operated stereoscope was patented by William Speirs Simpson in 1886.
The German Kalloscop was patented in 1888 and its mechanism looks very similar to your machine - so I'm guessing there was nothing to patent. Mind you, many patents are filed despite prior art.
Anyway, as you say - a great name and a great machine you have there.

[gameswat]

PM, on re-reading this I see you mention the Kalloscop, on looking closely I see a button on the lower front to push or pull so automatically I thought the mechs would differ, and on finding interior photos the mechs aren't the same, though they do use the same chain belt system. I could also find no Patent for the Kalloscop by Polyphon Musikwerke or under it's pre-1895 name of Firma Brachhausen & Riesener. Where did the information about a Patent date of 1888 come from?

[pennymachines]

Unfortunately, I don't recall where I got that snippet of information, which is a reminder of the importance of quoting sources...
They Create Worlds mentions the same date and an inventor, but not a patent:

...In the meantime, however, Edison had hit on another new idea in 1888, a device that could display moving pictures. At the time, stereo scope viewers, in which a person examined a picture through a special eyepiece that made it appear three dimensional, had been popular for some time, and had first incorporated a coin slot two years earlier in 1886. In fact, the same year Edison decided to explore moving pictures, a German named C. Bach introduced a viewer called the Kalloscope that proved one of the most popular, and most imitated, coin machines of the late nineteenth century.

I haven't seen the aforementioned William Speirs Simpson patent either, but Amazon has his "Original Patent Application Number 11,317 for automatically lighted apparatus for the reception of coin and the exhibition and delivery of photographs or the like in exchange thereof, 1887."

Edit to add - I see the reference to an 1888 Kalloscop patent came from p193 of Automatic Pleasures:

...the most successful of the early stereo viewers was that patented by a German, C Bach, in 1888 and marketed as the 'Kalloscope'.

I've failed to track down many of the patents mentioned in this book.

[rod90]

I recently acquired one of these. I had some issues with the coin mechanism and a lack of key. These issues will be rectified shortly.