By Phil Marsh, British Vintage Stereoscopy
I came rather late to stereoscopy. At the end of the Summer in 2020 I had a conversation online with an acquaintance known for jumping into hobbies with great enthusiasm, talking about them endlessly for a relatively short period, then moving on to something else shortly after. His latest enthusiasm was View-Master reels. “I remember those, I had a couple as a child”, I thought. Long since disappeared, via a succession of younger siblings inheriting the contents of my toy cupboard.
Anyway, his talking about it had peaked my interest so I thought “buy a couple of reels and a viewer on eBay – that’ll be a nice trip down memory lane and they’re not expensive. No harm in that”, I thought.
Oops.
I can almost see the raised eyebrows and laughing at my naivety as you read! If only I had heeded the advice of a collector from Belgium, who warned me that stereoscopy was “a very very deep rabbit hole”. I laughed! “No problem, just buying a few…” I thought. Inevitably, over the next couple of years more and more caught my eye; I amassed HUNDREDS of View-Master reels, packets and more duplicated viewers than anyone really needs.
But this article isn’t about View-Masters. They weren’t enough for me, it seems. I started peering into that rabbit hole a bit more…finding other stereo viewers…and being seduced by sexy little bakelite numbers from Germany or France from 70+ years ago…and then another…and another. Now, as I sit writing this six years later, looking around a room with numerous viewers and stereo views in many different formats, it appears I fell into that hole very very deeply. And that’s before I look at the wall, where I had a couple of large new shelves fitted to house my newly acquired stereoscopy-related books… And which are now full.
So while that aforementioned acquaintance did indeed predictably move on to other things within a short time period, I disappeared into a whole new world and for 6 years now have spent a lot of time reading, researching, learning about stereoscopy in several different countries, as well as the formats that came and went. And of course, enjoying many stereo views.
I’m a great believer in sharing information, not gatekeeping just for the sake of it. I already take part in online forums, social media groups etc but eventually I wondered if there is still room on the internet for a website anyone can just visit whenever they feel like it, to use for reference and perhaps see things they hadn’t been able to access elsewhere. That idea evolved as I realised that even living in the UK, most of the viewers and formats that came from here are some of the more scarce and least mentioned online. Go on eBay on any day and you will be AWASH with Holmes-style stereoscopes or View-Masters. But try looking for (for example) an English Sightseer or True-View viewer and you might find one on eBay UK perhaps 2 or 3 times a year; the stereo film strips even less often.
Sightseer box and Viewers LRL
Sightseer film holders
So as I’ve been lucky enough to find quite a few, I thought I’d confine myself to telling the stories of British stereo viewers and sharing the stereoviews made for them. After a few months’ work, British Vintage Stereoscopy was officially launched in June 2026, on the weekend of Stereoscopy Day, creating an ongoing repository of information on British stereoscopes, and pages and pages of stereoviews! Most of my knowledge currently is in the 20th century, so for the time being that is where my focus will be. That also influenced the web design, designed to evoke the feel of a mid-20th century museum, of sorts; for me, it suited the subject matter.
British stereoscopy covered everything other countries did – from scenic, travel, education and special interest views; views made for commercial purposes (company promotion, for example), hand drawn cartoons for kids… and giveaways with cereal and cigarettes. All of these appeared in many formats and sizes, with many different viewers. Lots of these views are hard to find today – some, like Realist format slides taken by Brits (we had the British Sterolist viewer to view those in), will be unique.
1956 French Street Scene LRL
I will share as many as possible on the site – scanned, digitised, cleaned a little and presented to you so you can enjoy views you may have never seen, from formats you’ve not perhaps been able to source (or even heard of, in some cases). In colour, in black and white, from film strips to slides and prints, and in more sizes than you can imagine – there’s a lot to cover! And I have a lot to share.
Stereoviews need stereo viewers, of course, so I’ll tell you what I know about the many different viewers and provide links to other sites for further reading where appropriate. At the time of writing, the site is less than three months old and contains articles on 6 unique viewers with 12 sets of views scanned in – there will be more on the site by the time you read this and more will continue to be added regularly.
I’ll also be sharing reference lists of published views for each format where relevant. Some of these are fixed (we know there were only 30 True-View film strips for example, and a list is on the site), some are more unknown – Vistascreen only lasted around 3 years at the end of the 1950s but there are believed to be over 350 separate sets of views – and no printed list from the company seems to have them all! On the site now is my list containing over 330 I have identified – and that will continue to be updated as I find evidence of others.
Photos and scans are all my own, or have been sent to me for publication by the owner. You will find no plagiarism on my site, just the results of me sifting through lots of information online and consolidating the facts. All articles are written by me – there is NO AI used in either writing the articles or editing the views. Not everyone will agree with me but I like knowing that the articles are my work, and the photos on the site are the originals, not AI renditions. Any cleaning of photos is done by me and just to remove dust spots and bad scratches etc. If the view on the site looks a little dirty or marked – that’s because, being over 60/70/80 years old (or older), it got a little dirty over the years and I don’t mind that.
Stereo prints are scanned, cleaned, and the complete print is put up on the site as is – as a side by side view for those who can free view or have a viewer:
On the other hand, those formats consisting of 2 separate frames (film strips or Realist slides, for example) will be scanned or digitised separately, cleaned and then recompiled as stereos – in some cases this improves the original stereo effect, where alignment issues were not uncommon. These are reproduced as L-R-L views for those who can free-view (or have a viewer) or cross-view:
I also run a newsletter alongside the site which exists to let subscribers know when new content is added, plus anything else stereoscopy-related I think of which doesn’t quite fit the site. If you want to sign up to that, it’s free (of course) and you can find that at https://britishvintagestereoscopy.substack.com. You should only then get an email from me when there’s something new on the site – no spam.
In closing, I hope this has whetted your appetite for the first of many visits to see more views (and viewers!) as time goes by. Feedback is always welcome and if I’ve missed anything out or even got something wrong I am always happy to hear from those in the community who have better information. I’m also happy to talk to anyone who feels they’d like to contribute an article or scans (or both) – the site already has 1 article written by a guest contributor. I can always be contacted at BVS@gmx.co.uk. I’m open to anything relevant to the site.
Phil
