Toy cinema projector

During the 1940s, in the middle of the post-Spanish Civil War period, the shortage of materials to manufacture the Cine NIC was a serious problem that had to be overcome. The solution was to use tinplate and cardboard to build the housing of the projector. The axis or support of the films was made of cardboard, whereas it was originally made of iron, and the quality of the paper was reduced. A new, smaller model of Cine NIC was also built for films of narrower dimensions. From this period are the popular models: Corriente Mixto, Super NIC Mixto, NIC Sonoro Mixto and the NIC Sonoro Metálico, which were on the market well into the 1960s. Over the course of forty years, the company Proyector NIC S.A. patented some twenty different models of Cine NIC and manufactured hundreds of thousands of them, a record for that time. The great success was due, above all, to the easy handling, their sturdiness in the hands of children, the addition of technical innovations – such as sound - and the wide range of prices on offer. Their great popularity was also the result of the extensive catalogue of films, which told entertaining and easy-to-follow stories.