Collection shops of 17 Antique Magic Lantern Glass Slides, circa 1900

Collection of 17 Antique Magic Lantern Glass Slides, circa 1900.

These Victorian Magic Lantern slides were created somewhere between the late 1800s to about 1909. Made of glass with paper edges, these would have been used in an antique 'magic lantern' machine. Slides were placed into a slot and manually 'slid' to display each image; no wonder why so many of them receive so much wear & tear. A light source from behind would illuminate the image upon a wall or white screen.

Just $119.95 for all 17 slides - that's about $7 each.

Many of these slides hold four circular images surrounded by a black border and paper edging. Very early magic slides (pre 1850) would have been painted by hand - however, these were created using chromolithography or decalcomania multi-layer printing techniques.

A few of the slides are marked E.P. which is short for Ernst Plank, a German manufacturing company that made magic lanterns and related materials including magic slides up until about WWI. A couple others are marked J.F. (Johannes Falk), another maker of lanterns ca. 1900. One slide portrays Russian warlords in the Russian-Japanese war (Feb. 1904 - Sept. 1905) and contains portraits of Kuropatkin, Kaulbars, Linnewitsch and Anatoly Stessel.

Slide sizes vary (for different styles of lanterns). The smallest is 6¼" x 1¾" shops and the largest ones are 8" x 2½".

CONDITION: No broken corners, no cracks to any of the 17 slides. Paper border shows damage and/or missing areas on some of the slides. Some spots of missing paint due to scratches on some. Please refer to photos.