EDUCA Stereoscope

France, 1920s

This was the first tabletop viewer in our collection. It was patented by Lavelle and Mattey in 1927 and manufactured by Mattey. Marketed for educational use, it’s uniquely designed to view glass plates with 12 stereo pairs on each plate: 2 stereo pairs on each of 6 rows. The knobs on each side of the viewer’s body move the glass plate up and down to bring each row into view and the lens board is shifted from side to side by hand to view both pairs in each row. The knob next to the lens board adjusts the focus. There are numbered slots in the bottom compartment of the viewer for storing the glass plates. The stereoview plates that came with this viewer are geographic; however, we have war and commercial plates in our collection. We’ve seen erotica plates as well but do not have any in our collection.

To learn more about this stereoscope manufacturer, read this informative Mattey article.

Material: Wood
Media Format: Multi-view glass plate
Light Source: Natural light
Focus: Adjustable
Interocular: Fixed