Very Rare Kemco Homovie 16 mm Home Movie Camera Kodel Electric Co 1931 Orig Case

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Quoting Alan Kattelle (1919-2010) Author, Home Movies: A History of the American Industry, 1897-1979 Kemco Homovie, 1931 ; While 16mm substantially reduced the cost of home movies, inventors continued to look for ways to reduce the cost even more. One very ingenious solution was patented by Clarence Ogden, a pioneer in early radio equipment. Ogden’s idea was to squeeze four images into the 16mm frame, which he did in what is elegantly called a "boustrophedonic pattern", or "as the ox plows." Ogden’s idea was clever, and his factory turned out a mechanical marvel, but the system was doomed by the next development from Eastman Kodak. Both the Kemco camera and projector are quite rare. This description is taken from a reply to a blog, by David Silver; The Kemco Homovie system was introduced by the Kodel Electrical & Manufacturing Company of Cincinnati around 1930. It's unique in that it takes standard 16mm film, but uses a crazy mechanical film transport device that makes four exposures in the same sapce as one regular 16mm exposure. It moves the film through the camera in a "boustrophedonic" pattern, two frames left to right, then drop down for two frames right to left, and then jump to the next space. Crazy, but it worked! The result is that you can film four times as much on a single roll of film. The industry standard for 16 read more

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