Zoetrope Replica

About the Zoetrope

The zoetrope was one of the earliest movie toys and was extremely popular in the latter half of the 19th century. It consisted of a slotted cylinder through with one views paper animated movie strips. As the cylinder spins the user looks through the slits at the pictures on the opposite side of the cylinder's interior. The scanning of the slits keeps the pictures from simply blurring together so that the user sees a rapid succession of images producing the illusion of motion, the equivalent of a motion picture (see our video below).

About THIS Zoetrope

This is a fine replica of an 18th century Zoetrope. Handcrafted with attention to detail; built to last-made to be used.

This replicas is...

• Fully functional
• Has a solid hardwood base
• Cylinder is made of thick stiff faux leather with decorative brass nails
• Comes with 40 antique animation strip reproductions and a blank strip for you to make your own animation, a booklet of animation instruction and historical background about the toy
• Measures 12 1/4 inches (31 cm) high X 5 1/4 inches (13.5 cm) in diameter

Video of this Zoetrope in action! It is hard to capture the magic of this device, but this will give you an idea what it will look like:

Large view of the 40 antique, animated strips - 19 in color and 21 in black and white:

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