Velbon Cardboard Stereoscope

Japan, 1950s

I have only seen this style of folding, cardboard, pull-string viewer come out of Japan and prior to getting this viewer, I’d only seen the small black version produced for OXO and Owla. We’re delighted to welcome this larger, more colorful version to the collection.

Provenance: This viewer comes into our collection from a woman who found it going through a box of her father’s items. Her father was a printer by trade – from typesetting on a linotype, to preparing printer-ready paste-ups with film (negatives), and on to composing on computers when that entered his industry. He started taking photos around 1935, when he was a young boy. He continued with casual photography as a newlywed and young father. By the mid-1950’s, he had a 8mm movie camera (no sound back then) to record his growing family’s everyday life. It’s suspected that he picked up this stereoscope where he got his film. The stereoview shown below is marked “Velbon Super Elevator Tripod” and the woman confirms that her father did have a grey, telescoping tripod for his movie camera.