A Visual Documentation

This website began as a 2020 pandemic project and the goal of it has always been mostly visual — putting vintage stereoscopes in the spotlight, showing off their coolness. When I started the site, I’d already been photographing and posting my favorite viewers on Instagram for about 2 1/2 years. The plan for this site was to share even more photos plus mid-century viewer histories and mysteries I come across in my research. My intent was not to create a complete, detailed spec catalogue of the world’s stereoscopes. This is a visual documentation of one curated vintage 3D viewer collection, supplemented by any interesting history and design facts I find.

I attribute my induction into stereoscope collecting to 4 things: a book, Google, an antique store, and Tom Martin. It started with the book.

1. Murder and … Architecture?

Sometime between 2005 and 2015, I picked up Erik Larsen’s book, “The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America.” The featured psycho, H. H. Holmes, was interesting but nowhere near as fascinating as the story behind the creation of the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago — the planning, the architecture, the execution. Wow. Mind blown. Spark ignited.

2. From 3D to Virtual Reality (VR)

Early in 2015, a partnership formed between Google and Mattel to re-imagine the classic View-Master 3D viewer as a VR device, basing it on Google’s new Cardboard VR platform. I was amused and intrigued by this old-school-meets-high-tech endeavor and it brought 3D viewing devices to the conscious part of my brain.

3. Tru-Vue & Another World’s Fair

Early in 2017, I was wandering through one of the antique stores on San Carlos Blvd in San Jose and came across a small stereoscope from the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago. It had a Century of Progress logo on the front, as well as on its box, and came with several rolls of stereo film. I knew absolutely nothing about Tru-Vue or stereoscopes or stereo film. I just loved the connection to the Chicago World’s Fair. Even though it wasn’t the same 1893 World’s Fair I’d read about in Larsen’s book, the 1933 World’s Fair was also in Chicago and that was connection enough. This discovery brought 3D viewing devices and the World’s Fair together in a way that was really interesting to me.

4. A Collector is Born

When I got my purchase home, I was curious about its worth so I did some web searching and came across Tom Martin’s wealth of information about Tru-Vue. I caught the collecting bug from his site. At first, I was only interested in collecting every variation of Tru-Vue viewer, film, box, and case that he listed on his site, as well as the other 35mm stereo film-based viewers he mentioned from that era: Novelview, De Vry, Filmoscope, etc. From there though, my interest expanded to all mid-century 3D viewers as I became fascinated with the sheer variety of styles. There was a whole world of 3D viewers that were not View-Masters! I wanted at least one of each in my collection, my goal being to have a cool, mid-century display that was rich with historical context but would also serve as a visual style guide to a century of worldwide 3D innovation. Initially, in order to keep the scope small and manageable, I avoided Holmes- & Brewster- style viewers from the 1800’s, tabletop viewers, and View-Masters. At the time, I just didn’t have the physical space to display them nor the mental space to learn about all of them.

Today

As you’ll see, I gradually opened up the collection to a handful of 3D viewers from the 1800s, select View-Masters, a few tabletop viewers and a few viewers that were made more recently but only if they caught my eye for some aesthetic reason. Through collecting, I’ve made connections in the stereo photography community but I’m not a stereo photographer myself. I’m definitely in this collecting gig for the viewers: their style, their stories, their longevity, their unique personalities. I have particular interests that have spun off into sub-collections; for instance, commercially branded viewers, folding viewers, and, of course, cardboard viewers. I appreciate the escape these viewers give me — stolen moments spent researching, organizing, studying, arranging, photographing, comparing, discovering, and wondering why we’ve come together in the way that we have.