The brass case may well have come from a longcase clock, however the preliminary markings where the pillars are now present suggest that the construction was well thought out. There may well have been more mirrors to direct the light from the source (which was likely to have come from the underside) to the exit point as at the moment, the two mirrors do not position light from any angle of incidence to the marked area of reflection.

Upon first inspection, the following test was carried out:
A single laser pen light shone into the prism interlace directly from the front and out of the lens, produced a small cluster of three beams and when the crank was turned slowly clockwise, the beams met and produced a smaller cluster of light moving left to right.
The fragment of the fourth glass disc shows that there was a spiral of black dots and this would have been positioned obscuring the interlace. With this patterned disc, the effects could be controlled to give a light beam that has a long or short length depending on the speed of the crank turns.

Nipkows' patent for an image scanner and constructor was in 1884 and it may be possible that a French inventor also tried developing a machine which could scan, sort, send, receive and retreve the information being offered. Also, the possibility of this being an experimental Kineomatoscope has been thought of as unlikely.