09 October 2011

Remembering the "View-Master"

From an article this week at the Design Observer:
“People started collecting these pictures because it was a way to see exotic parts of the world that they could never afford to travel to,” recalled Kaplan, who grew up in the 1950’s, during the height of the View-Master’s popularity in the United States. At the time, View-Master models were sold at a dollar each (equivalent to $9.27 in 2011), while the reels themselves were only 35 cents, making stereoscopic viewers an affordable hobby. It was common for every child to own one. While adults watched television, children escaped into three-dimensional imaginative worlds. Like baseball cards and stamps, they satisfied the innate human desire to collect. For children like Kaplan in the 1950’s, collecting View-Master reels “was like having your own little art collection.”..

“When people think of them from their childhood, back in the 1950’s, they think of the black and brown ones,” stated Kaplan, remembering the viewers that were produced in a sturdy, shock-resistant Bake-Lite plastic. But the slow compression-molding process of Bake-Lite was too costly for the rapid demand in viewers. So in 1958, Charles Harrison updated the shape and materials of the Model F View-Master, replacing the original Sawyer design with a beige plastic. While the format of the standardized reels never changed, the viewer went through several redesigns under different brands, embracing a bright red plastic after it was acquired by GAF, and eventually various shapes and colors as it was marketed solely to children under the Fisher-Price brand.
We had an early View-Master in our home in the mid-1950s. 

14 comments:

  1. We sell those at the Glacier Pt. Gift Shop in Yosemite National Park, with one reel. You can buy additional reels too.

    Nice idea to sell the reels in a jewelcase.

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  2. We had a view-master set with a number of Disney shorts adapted to viewmaster format. I could swear there were accompanying 45 records with the set.

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  3. My workplace was just given one of these by a vendor, as a promotion. The reel contained a slideshow of their product's virtues. We all picked it up and played with it, of course - very effective marketing idea.

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  4. I still have my old black Bakelite one and a few reels. I have 2 new ones in my office to entertain kids - and they do!

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  5. Still have my family's two Bakelite viewers and a big box of reels. The travel images made a huge impression on me as a little boy. My first wondering at things like the pyramids, cities of Europe, and the great American desert West (and Disneyland, of course!). I liked the feel and sound of that little spring advance mechanism.

    I also have our Holmes Stereoscopes, invented by one of my distant relations, Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. The original family 3D!

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  6. Not sure if they still do this, but there's a 70s-themed restaurant here in Philly that used Viewmasters as their dessert menu: 3D pics of all the offerings, to get your mouth watering!

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  7. Oh I feel old, remeber getting one for christmas and how cool I thought it was.

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  8. A friend of mine has a double-lensed ViewMaster camera. It takes 2 film exposures at once. He took 3 rolls of them at my wedding reception in 1998, then had them developed onto slides and placed on ViewMaster disks.

    Thus, I have 3-d ViewMaster images of my own wedding reception. They are VERY cool!

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  9. I loved my ViewMaster!

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  10. My first View-Master was the red GAF viewer. Among my collection of Sawyer and GAF reel packets are TV Shows,Movies ,and Classic Cartoon clay dioramas. I also enjoy creating "Homage" packets which I have started my first blog about.

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  11. I have the original viewmaster camera from the viewmaster factory. It is modified for electronic flash. They used this camera to take the photographs for the viewmaster reels. I also have a model 500 stereo projector and sivler linticular screen. It was giving to me by viewmaster when I closed the plant down. When they sold the name, they asked if i was interested in selling the camera back. I said no because it has 2 perfectly matched lenses. Anyone have an idea what the value of these items are?

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    Replies
    1. Impressive. We have several readers who are photographers; I'll call their attention to your question.

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    2. One reader suggested you might find some information here -

      http://www.image3d.com/celebrate/about?p=celebrate%3Eabout

      - or by contacting the people at that link.

      Delete

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