Identify Antique Simplex Projector

[Tim Shinners]

Hello - I've been trying to identify this old Simplex projector (in my attic) but can't find any info for anything that looks like this (see pics). Perhaps someone in this group can tell me what it is and if it is something that would be interesting/of value to someone. I really appreciate any input that you can provide. THANKS! Tim

[Mitchell Dvoskin]

That is a Simplex Standard. I am not sure of exactly when they were manufactured, but they were very popular from the early to mid 1930's, until the Super Simplex was introduced. Below are pictures from the Simplex Standard in The Landmark Loews Jersey in Jersey City. That one is equipped to switch between Vitaphone disc or optical sound.

vitaphone proj 6.jpg

vitaphone2.jpg

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I(t's one of the most common projectors ever produced, and there were lots of clones too.. The reason you can't find much on it is because most were converted to rear shutter when the sound era started.

Mitchell, The small town theater I grew up in had that exact same setup. with the Ashcrafts.

[Jim Cassedy]

It's definitely a Simplex "Standard" (also sometimes called the "Regular" ) and it first appeared around 1910-12,
and over the years, it evolved with several improvements to the lens mount and the change to a double-bearing
oil bath intermittent movement around 1925. The little hole in the door was where you stuck the hand-crank.
It was replaced by the Simplex "Super" in 1928, although I believe they continued to manufacture it for some
time after that. I'm not sure exactly when they stopped making it. There were sill some of these that had been
motorized & converted to sound and were still running in the 1970's when I first started working the projection-biz.
At one theater where I ran one they still had the hand-crank in the 'spare parts' cabinet in the projection room.
There may even be a some still around & in use somewhere.

☞A SIMPLEX "STANDARD", AS PICTURED IN A 1916 PROJECTION
HANDBOOK I HAVE IN MY COLLECTION OF INTERESTING AND
ESOTERIC CINEMATIC INFORMATION AND INCUNABULA

SimplexStandard.jpg

JC

[John Eickhof]

it is 'the simplex' then later as the 'simplex regular' as it was named after the introduction of the 'simplex super'e in 1929. the first simplex was introduced in 1911 and had a solid door, then they went to a half size doorglass in 1912 and the full door glass in 1914, if you can provide me with the serial number located either just above the fire shutter lever (centor rear of the machine stamped into the main frame casting, or if no number there it will be stamped just under the lensholder looking inside the film side of the machine, i can provide the year it was made, this machine was made with the front shutter from 1911 through 1927 when the factory started installing rear shutter on all mechanisms, plus there were a miriad of rear shutter conversions by several manufacturers available for customer retrofit such as basson and stearn, and pemco as well as wenzel. This machine was nicknamed the 'standard' by users as it quickly became the standard of the industry as there were over 28,000 mechaisms sold by the end of 1928!! Making it the most popular projector made to date! The last regular was made in 1937 with a serial number in the 52,000 range!* according to my factory serial number list. Your head appears to be early 1920s as it has the upgraded pad roller arms, early type lever for framing, and bb intermittent movement. (earlier mechanisms had lighter pad roller arms, a b type intermittent. (however you could upgrade these items on early heads) if you are looking to restore it, i have thousands of new old stock parts for these mechanisms including the doors and covers that are commonly broken due to the pot metal used back then! Attached is a pic of my 1919 simplex. I also have a 1916 model.

[Jim Cassedy]

Just totally by coincidence, I came across this photo in a 1927 article on early flim
sound systems that I was reading online the other day . The original caption reads:
" The General Electric System Attached To A Standard Projector" (italics mine)
- - and as U can C, the projector is clearly a Simplex "Standard" model.
GE_SimplexSound.jpg
> The G-E system, like deForest's Phonofilm, placed the sound head
at the top of the projector, as was later done with mag penthouses,
DTS and SDDS readers, so the track lagged "behind" its' corresponding
image frame, instead of preceding it as later became the standard.
( I don't recall separation distance- - maybe someone here knows.)
Also note it has a front ("finger slicer") shutter.

➔ Source: "Motion Picture Projectionist", Oct 1927 Pg 19

[Frank Cox]

John: Shutter on the front? Was that common? I've never seen the shutter in front of the lens like that before.

[Gordon McLeod]

John: Shutter on the front? Was that common? I've never seen the shutter in front of the lens like that before.

Almost all early projectors had the shutter in the front. With the smaller aperture size to accommodate the soundtrack and the need for more light they went to the rear shutter to reduce the heat on the film

[John Eickhof]

Gordon is correct as far as front shutters being the predominent type prior to sound there were a few exceptions like the optigraph (early motiograph) that had a barrel shutter and after sound the Gardiner projector was basically a simplex with a rear barrel shutter, there was also a german projector that had a rear conical shutter like the simplex xl. Gordon, thats interesting about the ge sound and i question your comments regarding the DeForest phonofilm system...I have a complete phonofilm system incuding preamp and power amp as well as a soundhead designed for under the mechanism and the manual for same dated 1925 at least at that point the phonofilm system read the sound ahead of the picture like all sound on film systems from 1926 onward...the attached pic is of the 1940 dated parts list, by this time, simplex was producing six models, the regular, super, E7, SI , simplex-acme type A semi-portable, (also painted USN haze grey and called the Navy model ) and the SP thus the name regular was assigned in order to make model identification easier for the users of the various mechanisms.

[Kenneth Wuepper]

Bill Shepherd, a silent film news camera operator in Chicago in the early 1920's told me about the POWERS projectors. They had the front shutter as well.
He told of someone sticking their had into the booth port and encountering the shutter.

Stopped the show. Created some bruising. Destroyed a shutter and the gear that drove it.

Just for the sake of history.

[Randy Stankey]

How many times have people had to answer the question, "Why is there a FAN in front of the lens? Does it really get that hot?"

I've been asked that a couple of times. I know...the only stupid question is the one that isn't asked. Most people just don't know.

[Leo Enticknap]

I'm surprised that shutters in front of the lens persisted for so long, given the increasing risk of nitrate ignition (as theaters got bigger, and so did lamphouse currents, and thus heat output) and increased lens wear caused by that constant heat exposure. I guess that simpler and cheaper manufacturing, assembly and maintenance must be the reason. Adjusting the timing must have been dead easy!

[Phillip Grace]

Tim, here is something you might find useful, found on a dusty shelf at the back of the Film-Tech Warehouse. http://www.film-tech.com/warehouse/w...026&category=2 IIRC the original publication in the BKSTS journal had some illustrations.
Re. Front shutters. I read somewhere, probably in Cameron or Richardson that the main reason for placing the shutter in front of the lens was for optical efficiency. The shutter is placed at the crossover point of the light beam, and the blades could be trimmed to minimum possible angle for best light transmission. I suspect there would be a dissolving effect to closing and opening which would soften the effect of flicker.
A number of very early projectors, pre-dating the Simplex, actually had internal shutters fitted just behind the gate - the Gaumont Chrono is one of them - and I think Edison's Projecting Kinetoscope is another. Both of these were widely used. The reasons the shutter was relocated to the now conventional position between lamp and gate are to do with gate temperature as described in the posts above.
There was also in the 1930's a brief enthusiasm for both front and rear shutters on the projector, in the quest for improved light transmission.

[John Eickhof]

Phillip, you bring up a good point, according to my research, the shutter was placed in front of the lens for several reasons, first was the thought of a smoother flickerless cut off of light due to the image blur at the shutter, next was convenience of driving it and have timing compensation during framing. there were machines like the powers model 5 and a couple edison models that had the shutter between the aperture and back of the lens, this was found to be unacceptable as the size of the blade waslimited and tended to heat up and warp and early edison machines had a two pin camshaft in the internittent and a single shutter blade that had an increased shaft speed and critical balance thus causing severe wear on parts. The era of the double shutters was caused by Brenkert as his optical staff believed the counter rotating 60 degree shutter would produce a better smoother dissolve of light in additon to cooler film path, century did develop their CC & DA models with the same type shutters,and simplex's rear/front shutter combination had the same cutoff effect even though they rotated the same direction. (because of the up side down condition due to lensing. but it was later proven the reduction in flicker really wasn't that noticable and the second shutter was eliminated with a 85-90 degree shutter. thus in an attempt of smoother cutoff in the early super simplex, the shutter had vignette teeth on the leading and trailing edge of the shutter (you can see it in the older operating maual on this site) aland it was a seperate two blades on one hub angled to work as a fan to keep the aperture and film cool with high intensity lamps, you definitely wouldnt want to stick your fingers in that one! front shutters had many nicknames...necktie winders, finger bobbers and knucle scrapers! especially after series two lenses came in with larger lens clamps and focus adj located right near the shutter!

[Simon Wyss]

We read: “In 1907, Bell & Howell built the Kinodrome projector for Major George K. Spoor. This was the first machine in which framing was accomplished by revolving the intermittent, as is done in most modern projectors. Another invention in this finely built mechanism was the double front shutter, with the disks revolving in opposite directions by using a shaft within a shaft, similra to the Century projectors of today.” Don G. Malkames: Early Projector Mechanisms. In JSMPTE, October 1957, p. 97 ff.

A reason for the placement of the shutter in front of the lens is that the convergence of the light beam has its maximum (minimum of diameter) before the lens most of the times. Not always. That allows to reduce the blades’ angles to a minimum. Let’s not forget that the optical angle in general was smaller in the early days than later when, after WWI, screens began to be made bigger relative to the setting. With shorter focal lengths of the lenses and lamp mirrors larger mirrors came into use and that pulled the position of the beam convergence back. One has found that it should lie on the film. So-called focal plane shutters were introduced which cut the light beam close to the film. Security concerns were merely the pretext for the development. As long as the film runs it doesn’t catch fire. The main problem of prints tearing and going up in flames was that they were full of splices in the case of tinted and toned versions.