Not a patent but a caveat — Thomas Edison Commemorative Silver Dollar Coin

Today, the Thomas Edison Commemorative Silver Dollar Coin remembers his activity on October 17, 1888 when he filed a caveat with the U. S. Patent Office.

The intent of the patent caveat, a legal document, was to prevent the patent office from issuing a patent for the same invention to another inventor.

Edison’s name for the invention, “Kinetoscope,” came from the Greek language of “kineto” meaning “movement” and “scopos” meaning “to watch.”

A few years later, Edison filed for a patent for the Kinetograph (the camera) and the Kinetoscope (the viewer) on August 24, 1891 and published on August 31, 1897 as US 589 168 A.

In his book Thomas Alva Edison, Sixty Years of an Inventor’s Life, published in 1908, Francis Arthur Jones provided insights into Edison and the invention:

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It was during the year 1887 that Edison invented the ” Kinetoscope,” or moving picture machine.

The idea was not an original one, nor does he claim it to have been, but frankly states that it was suggested to him by that interesting little instrument called the Zoetrope.

Edison had known this toy for many years, and after he had invented the phonograph he argued that it should be possible to make a machine “which would do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear.”

Later, when the kinetoscope was perfected, he declared that it would be comparatively easy to combine the two inventions, and with their aid give an entire opera on the stage of a theatre — the acting and singing being supplied entirely by the kinetoscope and phonograph.

During the spring of 1907 the writer questioned Edison on the subject, and he replied:

“The time is coming when the moving picture and the phonograph will be combined so naturally that we shall be able to show a trumpeter or any other musician so life-like in appearance that when he puts his instrument to his lips it will be impossible for anyone to say positively that it is not the living man himself who is playing. I look forward to the day when we shall give grand opera in so realistic a manner that the critics themselves will be deceived. We are working on these lines now, and though the difficulties are great we shall overcome them by and by.”

The invention of the kinetoscope took Edison into a realm of science into which he had not previously penetrated — that of photography. Up to the time when the idea of the kinetoscope first occurred to him he had never taken a snapshot, developed a plate, or, in fact, touched a camera.

But he soon saw that if he was to have any success with his new enterprise he must study the subject of photography from A to Z, and with his customary enthusiasm he threw himself at once into the work of mastering the art.

He realized that the pictures, to indicate natural movements successfully when thrown on a screen, would have to be taken with extraordinary celerity — from forty to sixty a second, in fact.

By this means only would the eye be unable to detect the change from one position to the other.

Edison endeavored to find plates (films) which would be quick enough to do this, and discovered that there were none in existence.

Thereupon he opened a photographic laboratory and by innumerable experiments succeeded in making films sufficiently quick for his purpose.

He learned all there was to learn regarding the taking, developing, printing, and toning of negatives, and soon began to make discoveries which were of inestimable benefit to him in the perfecting of the kinetoscope.

In this work Edison had the assistance of W. K. L. Dickson, who labored unceasingly with his chief in the development of the machine.

The two men worked together early and late, and thousands of experiments were made before the results satisfied them.

From the very first, of course, it was necessary that the photographs should be taken on strips of film, and literally miles of this sensitive material were exposed for the purpose of obtaining interesting subjects for the kinetoscope.

Every sort of incident was photographed, and the assistants in the laboratory were called upon to go through all kinds of “turns” (or “stunts,” as they called them) for the benefit of the kinetoscope.

Fred Ott, who was known to occasionally indulge in the luxury of an ear-splitting sneeze, was requested to give an illustration of his famous performance before the moving picture camera.

He protested at first but was compelled to yield, and by some means or other known only to himself was able to go through all the grimaces of a real, bond-fide sneeze while the camera clicked away at the rate of fifty pictures to the second.

Boys in the laboratory were told to turn somersaults, stand on their heads, play leap-frog, and perform other maneuvers supposed to be dear to youth, while various members of Edison’s staff were “taken” busily engaged experimenting.

When these pictures were thrown on to the screen they caused the liveliest interest and amusement.

Edison himself was asked to give “sittings,” but declined.

Then when the machine came nearer to being the perfected thing it is today a stage was put up in the Orange laboratory and various celebrated dancers came down from New York — Miss Loie Fuller among the number — and rehearsed their dances before the kinetoscope.

All this, of course, cost a good deal of money, and it is more than probable that this invention gobbled up at least a hundred thousand dollars before it could be considered a commercial success.

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The Thomas Edison Commemorative Silver Dollar Coin shows with an image of the sequence of the infamous kinetographic sneeze, circa 1894.

Thomas Edison Commemorative Silver Dollar Coin