Pathe Monaco Duplex Projector on ebay

[Rodney Bourke]

This rare 9.5mm Projector is on ebay France see

https://www.ebay.fr/itm/254976204557...QAAOSwhgBgm3lx

[Maurice Leakey]

Grahame Newnham describes this projector as a "total failure" and possibly led to the financial demise of Pathescope UK.

[Paul Adsett]

Just as with the Eumig 800's when removing the gate, you had to make sure the claw pin was withdrawn on the Monaco before rotating the lens turret to switch from 9.5mm to 4.75mm, otherwise bye bye claw pin. It's hard to imagine anyone (including Eumig!) marketing a product where one little mistake, one slight loss of concentration, results in its irreversible destruction!
The Monaco looks like a bad idea all around. The much touted Widescreen effect was a total crock, and the screen illumination through that tiny 4,75mm aperture must have been very poor. Pathe's last attempt to compete with 8mm just hastened their demise.
I put Pathe Duplex right up there with Polaroid's Polavision as the most ill conceived idea in home cine.
A can of New Coca Cola anyone?

[Maurice Leakey]

Paul has made some very valid comments. To read what Grahame had to say about the Pathe Monaco Duplex Projector, and its companion the Pathe Lido Duplex cine camera, click below and scroll down to these two items.

9.5 MOVIE EQUIPMENT (pathefilm.uk)

[Lee Mannering]

Some years ago I called on Grahame to collect a Duplex Monaco. (The one for sale on bay is not Duplex as it needs 2 lenses to rotate)
Grahame ran some films for us and we fetched the boxed projector home using it at our 9-5 meetings. After all the bad press our members were impressed with how steady the projected image was on a 6ft screen and yes it was a good runner. I liked the machine being a bit of a curiosity but some have been miss used and damaged as result. I never found a good 4.74 WS film but if you had a DUPLEX Monaco everyone back then would loan bits and pieces. The Lido Duplex camera was fun and Grahame had perforated and slit some film stock which he kindly gave me 50ft to try. It was B&W, did work to a point in my Duplex Lido and I processed at home under the stairs...as you do in various buckets as I had so spiral to fit.

Still have a big soft spot for Duplex and as a amateur gauge it was pretty ground breaking.

[Ken Finch]

It looks to me that the one advertised is a Monoplex, 1.e. widescreen only. I agree with Lee, if used properly it worked well. My last camera is a Classic "Lido" and always gave me good results and excellent value for money. Like all cine equipment, you have to learn to use it properly !!! Unfortunately many people did not bother and then complained about the poor results. However, there was a period of time when the processing was poor. Ken Finch.

[Paul Adsett]

The whole idea of Duplex was to halve the running cost of the 9,5mm film while producing a so called widescreen picture. Well it achieved that if you regard something slightly beyond a square 1:1 picture as widescreen!
I have often thought what Pathe might have done to achieve these goals in a much simpler manner. One thing that comes to mind would have been to introduce "Super 9,5mm" which would have been the same width film with a smaller sprocket hole at half the pitch of the standard 9,5 mm film. This would have given a real widescreen aspect ratio of about 2.2:1,and of course 1/2 the running cost of classic 9.5mm. Existing 9,5 mm camera and projector designs would have been relatively easy to modify to this new format since the width of the film and optical centerline would still be the same, just requiring a new cam and claw mechanism. The conventional vertical orientation of the film would have been retained with none of the nonsense of the Monaco's 4.5mm horizontal "Vistavision". The picture area would still have been significantly greater than regular 8mm.
Would such an approach have been successful? Probably not. At the time Duplex came out regular 8mm was in the midst of a massive market surge across the world, with exciting new superb quality projectors and cameras coming out almost on a weekly basis, and 8mm Kodachrome ruled the roost. Pathescope's range of cameras and projectors seemed outdated and no match for the "bootlace".

[Rodney Bourke]

Here is another one, they don't come up very often hard to find.
As well as Pictures see Video of Projector in Full working order.


https://www.ebay.fr/itm/364889712365...4AAOSwQUNlefGp

[Trevor Adams]

I had a bit of 'widescreen'4.75mm. Regretably the cameraman's subject matter was a door on an old outhouse.Very disappointing!