The Ives Kromskop

The Ives Kromskop

One of the most remark­able stere­o­scopes ever pro­duced com­mer­cial­ly was the Ives Krom­skop (Patent #531,040, Dec 18, 1894). In it, three stereo­scop­ic glass pos­i­tives made from neg­a­tives exposed through red, green, and blue fil­ters are opti­cal­ly super­im­posed to give a full col­or image of remark­able qual­i­ty. It was more than ten years pri­or to the intro­duc­tion of rel­a­tive­ly crude full col­or plates such as the Autochrome.

My Stereoview Box Set Collection and 3D Photography

My Stereoview Box Set Collection and 3D Photography

My stereopho­tog­ra­phy and stere­oview col­lec­tion are two sides of the same coin for me and have a com­mon ori­gin sto­ry. Trav­el back with me to May 2014 — Lon­don. A chance encounter on a canal boat. A ques­tion asked. An answer giv­en. My life… transformed.

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

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 Declaration of Love

A Declaration of Love

Alfred Silvester’s 1857 series of stere­oviews enti­tled ‘Dec­la­ra­tion of Love’ begins with a scene depict­ing a young woman seat­ed at the piano. Jonathan Ross inter­prets the series and reveals a Valen­tine’s tale — not only for Victorians.

A Trip to the Underworld

A Trip to the Underworld

Ladies and Gen­tle­men, please fas­ten your seat­belts because we are going to embark on a trip to the Under­world! This is a series of “Mod­ern Dia­b­leries” inspired by the orig­i­nal French Tis­sue stereo cards.
While most of the time the orig­i­nal Dia­b­leries were intend­ed to be scary, my approach and inter­pre­ta­tion on such Dev­il­ments is most­ly cheer­ful and entertaining.

My Magic Cards

My Magic Cards

What kind of enter­tain­ment would you have as a Sovi­et kid grow­ing up in the 1980s? A cou­ple of dolls, clothes; metal­lic con­struc­tor sets, the vinyl record­ings of children’s sto­ries; some cas­settes with pop­u­lar Russ­ian songs, and a bunch of film­strips. These things were in almost everyone’s pos­ses­sion – at least, that’s how I remem­ber my friend’s toys. How­ev­er, I had some­thing very spe­cial – a set of stereo cards, along with a sim­ple stere­o­scope that looked like binoculars. 

Nostalgia, Semiotics & Weird Stuff: A Guide to Collecting View-Master

Nostalgia, Semiotics & Weird Stuff: A Guide to Collecting View-Master

It’s prob­a­bly safe to assume that most peo­ple were intro­duced to 3D images via View-Mas­ter. Intro­duced at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, the hand­held 3D view­er was a very pop­u­lar for­mat that sold lit­er­al­ly bil­lions of prod­ucts from the 1940s right on through the 2000s. Here you’ll find a brief his­to­ry of View-Mas­ter, some images from my col­lec­tion and key con­tent cat­e­gories that may be of inter­est to those look­ing to start or grow their collections. 

True Crime in Old Stereographs

True Crime in Old Stereographs

What is meant by true crime? It’s a non­fic­tion genre hav­ing to do with actu­al crimes, usu­al­ly mur­der. It’s pop­u­lar now, but it was pop­u­lar in the 19th cen­tu­ry too‒just think of the pen­ny press and the Nation­al Police Gazette. As the joke says, “Crime may not pay, but it sells!”. I was curi­ous to see if it made its way into stereo cards, too. In what fol­lows, I’ve tried to pro­vide a thumb­nail sketch of each crime. Accounts from the time often vary, so I’ve tried to present a com­pos­ite set of the facts which I think are the most likely.

The Magic of Hyper Stereos

The Magic of Hyper Stereos

The view­ing expe­ri­ence of stereo pho­tos some­times is just as if you could step right into the scene. But the flat­ness of dis­tant land­scapes is an unde­ni­able draw­back for the stereo­scop­ic effect.
Read about the rea­sons and meth­ods to enhance the depth in such stereo pho­tos. Look at his­toric glass slides as well as at mod­ern drone stereo photos.

The Nevers Collection

The Nevers Collection

The sto­ry of 21 stereo glass neg­a­tives from the ear­ly stages of The Great War in Nev­ers, France.

Michael Burr’s Favourite Model

Michael Burr’s Favourite Model

Michael Burr was one of the most pro­lif­ic pho­tog­ra­phers of staged genre stere­oviews in the Vic­to­ri­an era. Like most pho­tog­ra­phers Burr had his favourite mod­els who make reg­u­lar appear­ances in his tableaux. One of them, and per­haps the most rel­e­vant to read­ers of this arti­cle, appeared as the wife of a stere­o­graph enthu­si­ast who, while her hus­band is occu­pied in scru­ti­n­is­ing the lat­est offer­ings from the trav­el­ling stereo sales­man, takes the oppor­tu­ni­ty to flirt with the top-hat­ted pur­vey­or of 3D delights.

“Tissues” or “The Happiness of the Collector in Collecting”

“Tissues” or “The Happiness of the Collector in Collecting”

What to do in 2020, these dif­fi­cult times for pas­sion­ate col­lec­tors? Read about Thomas Asch’s newest acqui­si­tion, get some his­tor­i­cal back­ground infor­ma­tion and look at the dif­fer­ent kinds of stereo­scop­ic Tissues.