Photographic Patents, 1895

Here are two photographic patents printed side by side in an 1895 issue of The Photographic Times.

Let's play a quiz game and see if you can guess which one I still use in my studio today in 2016, and which one would be the absolute worst idea in the world to use for street photography.

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No. 541,186. Magazine-Camera. Herbert Smith, London, England

In a photographic camera, the combination with a cylinder having two tubular chambers, two caps on the said cylinder carrying the lens tube and capable of turning, a disk shutter between the caps, and a spindle carrying the shutter and passing through the cylinder of a pistol-shaped handle, a rear cap on the cylinder, of a spindle engaging with the shutter spindle, spring and ratchet wheel on the said spindle, and trigger retaining the ratchet wheel and serving to operate the exposure device, substantially as and for the purpose specified.

No. 541,503. Machine for Trimming of Cutting Photographs. Charles L. Razoux, Boston, Mass., assigner of one-half to William B. Handy, same place.

A machine for cutting or trimming photographs, consisting of a flat bed plate, a cutting blade rigidly secured to one end thereof, a cutting blade pivotally secured to the right blade at one end and having its opposite end projecting beyond the edge of the said plate, and provided with a handle and a rule secured to the top of the bed plate, adjacent to the pivotal point of the cutting blades, and at right angles thereto, the inner edge of which rule is provided with an overhanging portion, substantially as set forth.

In my humble opinion, William B. Handy could quite possibly be the best name ever for an inventor.