In the early development of motion pictures, this Kinora viewer, right, was the high end of the hugely popular ‘flip-book’ film machines.
It was patented in 1895 by the greatest of the pioneers, Auguste and Louis Lumière, but they were already moving on to their ground-breaking Cinematographe projector and passed the Kinora to Gaumont, who began marketing it c.1900.
This example, offered by Adam Partridge (15% buyer’s premium) in Macclesfield on May 17, was produced in the UK under licence by Kinora between 1907, when the company changed its name, and 1914 when the factory burned down. Kinora was suffering plunging sales in the face of competition from the new cinemas and the factory was never rebuilt.