such much media :: stereoscopic photography

The View-Master was first presented at the New York World‘s Fair in in 1939. For many people the View-Master is the best known appliance to view stereo views.

The View-Master shown here is made of bakelite and presents the third generation of View-Masters (Model C : 1945 – 1955). The first two models distinguished by their round form that took pattern from the View-Master plates. Collector differences between 13 model generations (Model N : 1992 – today) and a few special models.
The size of a single picture of 1,0 cts x 1,2cts don‘t makes this kind of stereo view very detailed.

The inviting company Sawyer’c Inc. had world-wide patents for this kind of round plate, so later in France and East Europe other kind of stereo viewers were produced, where the size of the psingle pictures were the same, but one pair of pictures was ordered under the previous. So there was no plate, that was revolved, but a rectangular card was moved downwards.

[a] : View-Master plates, fifties of the 20th century
[b] : Sawyer‘s View-Master Model C (1946-1955), bakelite
[c] : Sawyer‘s View-Master Model C (1946-1955)
[d] : Sawyer‘s View-Master Model C (1946-1955), view through one lens;
own photographs, 2000