{"id":33531,"date":"2026-02-19T01:03:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T05:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/?p=33531"},"modified":"2026-02-17T22:26:52","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T02:26:52","slug":"the-kinetoscope-castle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/the-kinetoscope-castle\/","title":{"rendered":"The Kinetoscope Castle"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

before hi-fi …<\/p><\/div>\n

Toronto<\/strong>. Editor Bob Lansdale in this article writes about visiting the town of Fowlerville, a few miles northwest of Detroit with some MiPHS<\/a> members.<\/p>\n

The house he visited has a huge collection of kinetoscopes – and antique audio equipment as shown at left.<\/p>\n

The premises are occupied by Ken Stokes, John \u00a0Johnson and\u00a0Teddy the cockapoo. Shown at left is the living room [c 2000\/2001] filled with audio equipment of the\u00a0Victorian and\u00a0Edwardian ages.<\/p>\n

Bob begins his article, “Being close to the international border makes it convenient\u00a0to participate in the activities of one of our American counterparts. Such was the case when I accompanied members\u00a0of the Michigan Photographic Historical Society [MiPHS] on a\u00a0Saturday sojourn to the home of John Johnson and Ken\u00a0Stokes in Fowlerville, some 60 miles north-west of Detroit.<\/p>\n

“The setting has a small town atmosphere with a sedate bungalow style home of white clap-board that belies what\u00a0awaits inside. The tour was so impressive I had to return\u00a0a second time to record the exhibits on film\u2026<\/p>\n

“After a short introduction everyone was invited\u00a0inside to see ‘the collection’. It seemed slow for\u00a0the gathering to file inside as if the first to enter\u00a0were hard pressed to choose their way or move on\u00a0to some other choice exhibit. But once I, too, was\u00a0past the threshold I realized we were entering a museum \u2026 crossing a time warp to the early 1900\u2019s.<\/p>\n

“In all\u00a0directions, in every nook, covering every wall and\u00a0shelf were hundreds of examples of old gramophones with their big horns, and movie projectors\u00a0with their golden brass sprockets and gears. This\u00a0collection had, in fact, taken over the house, taken\u00a0over a double garage, taken over the loft, and, as I\u00a0found out, taken over several other storage facilities.<\/p>\n

“Narrow paths wind through the rooms making\u00a0it hard to move past anyone taking time for a close\u00a0inspection of some prize item. One visitor\u00a0described it as ‘being lost inside a Christmas tree.’<\/p>\n

“The displays are the result of merging two collections. Ken Stokes focuses on musical machines and has accumulated\u00a040 thousand records, primarily 78\u2019s\u00a0with a zest for jazz of the 1920\u2019s\u00a0and 30\u2019s. Juke Boxes, player\u00a0pianos and nickelodeons fill the air\u00a0at the drop of a coin, \u2013the pride is\u00a0to restore the items to working\u00a0condition.<\/p>\n

“Any memorabilia that\u00a0goes with the theme is of interest;\u00a0doilies, lamps, Mazda lamp bulbs\u00a0and trinkets consume all space atop\u00a0the time-piece furniture.<\/p>\n

“John Johnson points to his\u00a0grandparents for perking his\u00a0interest in old things. They possessed intriguing battery-operated radios that worked with vacuum tubes; his great grandfather\u2019s\u00a0brother owned a Regina <\/i>music\u00a0box-phonograph combination.<\/p>\n

“John eventually found a Regina Corona <\/i>which\u00a0operates with 27 inch punched discs.\u00a0John\u2019s main interest is in movie projection\u00a0equipment which harkens back to 1935 when he\u00a0showed movies to neighbourhood kids with a handcranked projector in a garage.<\/p>\n

After the Second\u00a0World War John bought up a bunch of old movie\u00a0equipment from a dealer who was going out of\u00a0business. In April 1952 he entered a new phase of\u00a0his life when he refurbished an old theatre in Caspian, Upper Michigan, fixed up a couple projectors and started a movie house, running 1st and 2nd\u00a0run films.<\/p>\n

“Success encouraged him to install bigger\u00a0equipment \u2013 even venturing to show the first 3-D\u00a0movie. At the same time John continued with his\u00a0daytime job as an electrician.” …<\/p>\n

Bob continues his story. Members read the tale and viewed the many photos in the issue 26-5 pdf file on the free members-only DVD\/thumb drive. If you aren’t yet a member, see the ways to join (it’s inexpensive) under ‘Membership’ above and at right. Direct membership questions to member@phsc.ca<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toronto. Editor Bob Lansdale in this article writes about visiting the town of Fowlerville, a few miles northwest of Detroit with some MiPHS members. The house he visited has a huge collection of kinetoscopes – and antique audio equipment as … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1944],"tags":[4850,34,93,1041],"class_list":["post-33531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","tag-audio","tag-cameras","tag-movie","tag-projectors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33531"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33534,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33531\/revisions\/33534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}