Magic Lantern / Glass Slide Scanning
Restore, preserve, and share your historic Magic Lantern glass slides with professional scanning. We handle delicate, flat glass slides with care and deliver clean, high-resolution digital files ready for archiving and display.
What We Scan
Yes, we scan Magic Lantern slides. These require extra work to scan properly, so pricing differs from our regular slide services.
- Accepted: flat glass, encased Magic Lantern slides.
- Not accepted: slides with wooden frames.
- Copyright: we will not scan any copy-protected Magic Lantern slides.
Use the Magic Lantern / Glass Slide order form to start your project.
Pricing
This type of film scanning is figured by finding the square-inch area of the Magic Lantern slide and then multiplying by $0.49, currently.
What Is a Magic Lantern Projector?
Early Magic Lantern projectors often resemble small kerosene stoves with a little vent stack on top. The outside was typically metal and became very hot due to the light source, which could be oil or gas, a burning piece of calcium, and later electricity.
Slides—hand-painted or photographic—were placed in the lens barrel. Light passed through the slide and lens to a screen or wall. In the early 1900s, glass-slide shows became popular entertainment and some slide series produced a simple illusion of motion.
Magic Lantern shows date back to the mid-1600s, remained popular into the 20th century, and were precursors to modern slide projectors.
Common Magic Lantern Slide Sizes
- Peck & Snyder Co.: 4.5" × 7"
- “English pattern”: 3.5" × 3.5"
- “French pattern”: 3.25" × 4"
- “Standard European”: 3.25" × 3.25"
- Another common size: 7-1/8" × 2" × 1/16"
Note: We do not sell Magic Lantern projectors or slides; images referenced are for illustration only.
