Article for the revolutionary
View-Master in early 1941
Toronto. Over time, stereo has popped up as a fad – as photo cards in the late 1890s, as cameras in the 1950s, as movies, as TVs and in 1939 as a child’s toy called a View-Master. This wonderful toy took advantage of Kodachrome, the recently invented and marketed ‘wunderkind’ of colour films first for 16mm movies, and then 35mm films and then even larger films. The idea of seven stereo images on one compact reel caught on and the toy grew in popularity over the years.
In September of 2006, we were treated to a presentation on, “The History of View-Master” by a couple famous for their collection of view-master products – Mary Ann and Wolfgang Sell. It was a wonderful night, especially as both me and my wife had View-Masters as children (I still have hers).
A grateful thank you to good friend and fellow collector, George Dunbar, for sharing this article from the March 1941 issue of Popular Mechanics magazine. The article shows the original View-Master. It brought back many pleasant memories to me.
Note. The title of this post is a riff on the Noel Coward song, “A Room with a View” from the 1928 London review called, “This Year of Grace“. I have a record of Noel Coward singing at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas many years ago (including this song).
