The birth of Stereoscopy: Wheatstone on Binocular Vision 1838, original source
June 21, 2022
Collecting, History, Stereoscopes, Stereoviews
       

The birth of Stereoscopy: Wheatstone on Binocular Vision 1838, original source

Back in 1838 the con­cept of binoc­u­lar vision had not yet been explored or writ­ten about any­where. It was a sci­en­tist in his mid 30s who not only described the phe­nom­e­non lat­er called stere­op­sis but also con­struct­ed a device to view two flat images in 3D which he called a stere­o­scope. This is espe­cial­ly remark­able as pho­tog­ra­phy was not invent­ed until one year lat­er. Charles Wheat­stone’s obser­va­tions were based only on draw­ings. Most of these draw­ings are based on hor­i­zon­tal mir­ror­ing which is why we call them mir­ror stere­os today. Read Wheat­stone’s orig­i­nal source here.

A Restorer’s Journey
October 8, 2021
Collecting, History, Stereoscopes
       

A Restorer’s Journey

Some­times you will get a glimpse of the indi­vid­ual his­to­ry of your trea­sure and know where it was stored, wether it was looked after or long for­got­ten, if the own­er was well sit­u­at­ed or not, etc. For me, these sto­ries are invalu­able. As a pas­sion­ate restor­er, I espe­cial­ly appre­ci­ate view­ers that have remained untouched since their last use. I care­ful­ly remove the dust of decades to reveal the orig­i­nal beau­ty of a stere­o­scope. Being the first one to do so feels almost like get­ting in touch with those who bought it a cen­tu­ry ago. I want to take you to one of those journeys.

Fine British Stereoscopes and their makers
June 20, 2021
Collecting, History, Stereoscopes
       

Fine British Stereoscopes and their makers

Not long after the Brew­ster view­er first appeared and the inter­est in stere­oscopy grew the mar­ket for view­ers grew like­wise and many designs of stere­o­scopes appeared includ­ing some very fine British view­ers. Read about box slid­ing view­ers, book view­ers, view­ers with cab­i­nets and many more.

The Brewster Stereoscope – its improvements and variations
May 23, 2021
Collecting, History, Stereoscopes
       

The Brewster Stereoscope – its improvements and variations

The Brew­ster stere­o­scope was with­out doubt the sin­gu­lar most pop­u­lar design of stere­o­scope from 1851 until the 1930’s when new for­mats took over and dur­ing this time its basic design changed very lit­tle. Though, there soon was a broad vari­ety of improve­ments and elab­o­rate decorations.

Le Taxiphote — the most famous French stereo viewer
May 2, 2021
Collecting, History, Stereoscopes
       

Le Taxiphote — the most famous French stereo viewer

The Veras­cope and the Tax­iphote are two halves of an unbe­liev­able stereo devel­op­ment effort that went on for 40 years essen­tial­ly with­out any changes. The Tax­iphote was export­ed to and patent­ed in many coun­tries. All this serves as an exam­ple of how attrac­tive stere­oscopy was at that time, and also con­firms the qual­i­ty of the Tax­iphotes as a tech­ni­cal device. We can only guess at the pres­tige of hav­ing a Tax­iphote at that time. 

Mid-Century 35 mm Filmstrip Stereo Viewers
November 5, 2020
Collecting, History, Stereoscopes
       

Mid-Century 35 mm Filmstrip Stereo Viewers

3D film­strip view­ers are a fam­i­ly of stereo view­ers that gained promi­nence in the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry. In fact, it was a small film­strip view­er called Tru-Vue that re-intro­duced 3D view­ing as a mid-cen­tu­ry pas­time, made it more afford­able than ear­li­er stere­o­scope sets, and paved the way in the hearts and minds of con­sumers for the pop­u­lar 3D reel & card view­ers that would come lat­er. For this rea­son, Tru-Vue has often been called “the miss­ing link” in stere­oscopy. Explore some of the most inter­est­ing film­strip stereo view­ers here.

Restoring Stereoscopic Antiques
November 1, 2020
Collecting, Stereoscopes
       

Restoring Stereoscopic Antiques

When con­sid­er­ing restora­tion, I always ask myself one very sim­ple ques­tion: What would this stere­o­scope look like today if it had nev­er dis­ap­peared from its own­er’s liv­ing room, but had been cher­ished and cared for con­tin­u­ous­ly for over 100 years?

Collecting Stereoscopes
September 7, 2020
Collecting, Stereoscopes
       

Collecting Stereoscopes

In this post, I will talk about col­lect­ing antique stere­o­scopes for glass stere­oviews from the peri­od 1850 to 1930. Some tips from my pre­vi­ous post can also be applied to stere­o­scopes, so I rec­om­mend to read this post first. How­ev­er, col­lect­ing stere­o­scopes comes with some addi­tion­al chal­lenges that I will address now.

A Multiview Stereoscope Comparison
August 27, 2020
Collecting, Stereoscopes
       

A Multiview Stereoscope Comparison

Mul­ti­view stere­o­scopes are table stere­o­scopes that are capa­ble of show­ing mul­ti­ple images in one view­ing ses­sion. These view­ers use a slide tray or chain in which the stere­oviews are placed. By turn­ing a crank or push­ing down a lever, the images are dis­played one by one.