The handheld stereoscopes had a sliding card mount which you could adjust backwards and forwards to get the best position to suit your eyes. The coin operated machines I suppose used the best average position... On mine it is 7 inches between the underside of the lens and the card, but sometimes the image seems to look better if I lift my head a little!
Re: What the Butler Saw - info please
Posted: Sat Apr 24, 2021 1:17 pm
by geofflove
Thanks. Slightly embarrassingly I’m concluding it’s my eyes! My wife sees them all fine! The design of the viewer prevents you wearing glasses which might help me!
Re: What the Butler Saw - info please
Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2021 3:52 pm
by arrgee
geofflove wrote:Slightly embarrassingly I’m concluding it’s my eyes!
You have obviously been looking at too many of these photos in the past Geoff and it's effected your eyes!
Re: What the Butler Saw - info please
Posted: Sat May 01, 2021 1:43 pm
by pennymachines
I had a request for restoration advice today on a Rosenfield Variscope from a museum in the Czech Republic. This prompted me to visit our Rosenfield stereo viewer topic, which shows a stereoscope mechanism very similar to yours. Serendipity! It was either a Variscope or Vaudoscope (I'm guessing the former), or another manufacturer's clone of the mechanism designed by the American Rosenfield Mfg. Co. (established in 1896 and making coin-op stereoscopes from 1899).
Born in California in 1867, William Rosenfield moved back east to his mother’s hometown of New York City with his family as a young boy. Mechanically adept, Rosenfield spent five years designing plumbing fittings before joining with a group of investors to establish the Amusement Machine Company in Jersey City in 1890. The company soon became one of the largest producers of trade stimulators and countertop gambling machines in the country, but by 1896 this business was starting to wane, so the founders decided it was time to cash out. Together with his sister, Bertha, and an investor named Francis Gribbins, Rosenfield raised $10,000 to establish his own maker of toys, tools, and mechanical novelties in September 1896 as the Rosenfield Manufacturing Company. Starting with the same gambling machines he had built at the Amusement Machine Company, by 1900 Rosenfield offered a full line of testers, shockers, peep shows, and vending machines and claimed to be the largest equipment manufacturer in the Eastern United States. The main driver of the company’s business, however, was the Illustrated Song Machine, which Rosenfield himself designed in 1899 and combined a Kinetoscope with a phonograph to provide a soundtrack.
Re: Rosenfield mechanism identified in 'What the Butler Saw' case
Posted: Tue May 04, 2021 8:18 pm
by geofflove
That’s really interesting! Definitely the same mech. Older than I thought.
I’ve finished working on mine now. Made 7 new carriers to replace the missing ones from brass sheet and sorted the electrics with a small bulb and battery.
Printed some pics I found online and job's a goodun!
Re: Rosenfield mechanism identified in 'What the Butler Saw' case
Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2022 5:36 pm
by tim575
Here is some additional reference on the Rosenfield Illustrated Song machine from ∼1905. Some internet references that there may be about 15 of these surviving. 5 were in known collections (noted in pencil with SN's on the back of one).
5 known
The one from the late Duwayne Bakke had been restored earlier by Tim F. Morsher and is now in my collection. You-tube shows the complete operation cycle of the complex mechanics. Mills made a version as well. The sound on the cylinder accompanies the stereo drop cards.
Re: Rosenfield mechanism identified in 'What the Butler Saw' case
