Friday, February 10, 2017

We used to make things in this country #247, Magnajector

 The Magnajector, was an opaque projector, a device to project and enlarge pictures on a wall or screen. It was a huge success, being sold for 40 years. It was said to have worn out three sets of molds in its production run. 
I have two stories of its origin,
 One) It was designed by Canadian designer Sid Bersudsky, and manufactured by Peter Austin Mfg. of Toronto. It was also licensed to Rainbow Crafts Inc. of Ohio.
 Or, Two) It was designed and originally sold by Rainbow Crafts and licensed to Peter Austin Mfg. 
There isn't much info on the Peter Austin Mfg. company except that it was a division of the Kelton Corporation of which there is also little info available, though I found the company registered the Magnajector trademark in the US in 1954, giving some evidence for story One. I never had one as a kid but do remember seeing them in the Popular Mechanics-type magazines of the time.






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1 comment:

Steve said...

I vaguely remember having one of these or at least something like it when I was very young. If I recall correctly, the text in the projected image appeared as reversed (mirror image), which made it kind of hard to read my comic books.

February 13, 2017 at 5:20 AM

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