Tru-Vue 3D Special Sets

Is there any area Tru-Vue missed with their marketing efforts? From religion to national parks to medicine, golf, world fairs, cows, hotels, and more, Tru-Vue was there — not only making a 3D film for it, but putting some of those films into specially curated sets with custom box designs. Some of these sets were made to be sold as souvenirs onsite at the tourist location featured in the film. Other sets were made as advertising tools to be given to prospective customers. It’s anyone’s guess how many of these custom, curated sets were made. What we do know is that it’s super cool coming across them in the wild. Here are the special sets in our collection.

Bobby Jones Golf Set -1934

In the 1930s, Tru-Vue issued a special wood & velvet cased set of instructional golf films in 3D featuring golf legend Bobby Jones. This is the first time we see a case insert with holes, designed to hold the individual film rolls without using film boxes. A later wood case for a medical film set would have a similar design. Later, the six Bobby Jones films were released in individual boxes. A lightly used, complete set (all six films, the viewer, and the film title insert) is rare. Tru-Vue collectors often have to compete with sports collectors when a complete set comes up for auction.

Passion Play Set - 1934

This boxed set is early in Tru-Vue’s history. It contains the early, shiny-faceplate Art Deco-style Tru-Vue viewer and the films Passion Play 1, 2, and 3 in early blue Tru-Vue boxes. The box reads:

The
Passion Play
A Pageant Drama of the
Last Week
of
Our Lord and Savior
Dramatized and Produced by the Author
The Reverend David A. Johnson

S. S. Normandie Set - 1935

An early set that features a picture of the S. S. Normandie ship on the box top and contains an early S. S. Normandie filmstrip (handwritten title frame). The box is an odd combination of blue and green. We’re not sure if that was the original design or something that has occurred over the decades but it looks very similar to the descriptions of the very first dark blue Tru-Vue box.

Fred Harvey
Fifty-Six Scenes of The Grand Canyon of Arizona

This set comes in Tru-Vue’s “six-box” box, designed for a viewer with 3 film boxes on each side. The “56 scenes” come from four Grand Canyon films, each with 14 frames. Since the box is designed for 6 film boxes, the extra two spots are filled with plain cardboard placeholders. These sets were sold at the Grand Canyon and also on trains headed to the Grand Canyon.

Fred Harvey
Eighty-four Scenes of the Great Southwest

This set comes in a red, textured box with gold type and the Tru-Vue logo in red inside the lid. The six films with 14 frames each total the 84 scenes.

Fred Harvey
Bird Logo

Red, textured six-box and silver foil six-box with the Fred Harvey bird logo.

Chicago Technical College - 1940

This special commercial set has a custom-printed 2-piece silver foil box with the name and address of the college in place of Tru-Vue’s logo. And a comes with a special film advertising Chicago Technical College.

Agricultural Laboratories - 1940

Another custom-printed silver foil box but this one retains the Tru-Vue logo. This set contains two films documenting “how and where McQueens Innoculant is Made.” While the titles on the film boxes and the film’s title frames are different, the images on both films are the same.

La Caverna Hotel - 1940

This special set comes with a hotel mailing label glued to the box top (we don’t know what’s under it) and a special commercial film of the hotel.

Hollywood Beach Hotel - 1940

This custom-printed silver foil box has an image of the hotel in place of the Tru-Vue logo.

St. Louis Stereo-Atlas of Surgical Technic - 1941

We had no idea this Tru-Vue set existed! This St. Louis Stereo-Atlas of Surgical Technic 3D set is from the early '40s. Our set is missing a roll, but we discovered that a complete 12-roll set is in the Historical Research Center at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

The photographer is listed as P. A. Conrath, who we think is the same Philip Conrath who was president of the Association of Medical Illustrators. Editing was done by J. M. McCaughan from the Dept of Surgery at St. Louis School of Medicine, and the set was sponsored by Siegel Sales.

Design note: it's the first Tru-Vue case we’ve seen with a wood insert to hold the film.

Haynes
Fifty-six Scenes of Yellowstone National Park

These sets are in the six-box (with cardboard “blanks” as placeholders) but the six-box in now two-tone: grey top and red bottom. It includes the more modern, streamlined Tru-Vue viewer, and has Tru-Vue in script inside the lid.

Consolidated Edison - 1941

Although this box lid looks like there’s a sticker on it, there’s not — it’s a custom-printed box top. An April 1, 1941 issue of The New York Times had a full-page Consolidated Edison advertisement. In one corner of the ad, was this:

Ask for a “Tru-Vue” Demonstration!
Ask the nearest cooperating appliance dealer, or our representative, to call at your home and show you exactly how these appliances look, through a 3-dimensional pocket stereoscope. It’s fascinating! As real as if you were looking at the actual appliances! Costs you nothing.

Chevrolet’s “400” Party Preview Set - 1941

An interesting set containing a film with dioramas from Chevrolet’s Chart and Art Department. The film is enticing Chevrolet car salesmen to reduce their used car stock so they can be invited to the 6th annual “400” party and be like the cool guy in the film, who is apparently having the time of his life.

American Red Cross Set - 1942-43

In the summer of 1942, Tru-Vue fulfilled a small order of viewers and films for hospital ships. The experiment was a success and in 1943, the American Red Cross in Washington D.C. placed an order for 10,000 viewers and 60,000 different films. The USO also put Tru-Vues in 500 camps.

The set is rare to find with the box in good condition. It will typically have 20 silver-boxed filmstrips and 3 black, streamlined Tru-Vue viewers. We have heard that a larger set exists but have never seen it.

Fruehauf SaleScope - 1952

A commercial, color film set, unusual because the viewer is referred to as a “SaleScope”. It was produced by Pictures Detroit, Inc. for The Allman Company, Inc., and promotes Fruehauf’s Road Star truck. Also notable is that this set was created very shortly after Sawyer bought Tru-Vue in 1951. The patent number in the title frame, 2, 326, 718, refers to Gifford Mast’s 1943 patent for the streamlined Tru-Vue viewer.

R. L. Polk & Co. (Canada) Ltd. Chrysler - 1968

Notable for the custom silver Tru-Vue Viewer, this set was made after GAF’s takeover of Sawyer. While Chrysler of Canada had commercial Tru-Vue film cards made throughout the 1960s, this is the first really upscale set that we’ve seen — it includes a printed note from Chrysler’s president.