Welcome

British Vintage Stereoscopy

Welcome

Today, 20 June 2026 - in celebration of Stereoscopy Day (which is actually tomorrow) - it is a privilege to get involved by launching my own small contribution to the world of stereoscopy - this website. Go HERE for more information about Stereoscopy Day, created and curated by the Brian May Archive of Stereoscopy.

I’ve been collecting stereo views and viewers for only a few years and have found quite a number of different British-made viewers and views (a reminder for anyone under 40 here that yes, we really did used to make things in this country!). When I went looking around on the internet for more information on these viewers, there’s quite a lot of information about American or French viewers and formats especially - but not a lot on those coming from Great Britain.

Stereoscopy was actually invented here in the UK by Sir Charles Wheatstone in the 1830s (and formally presented to his peers on this day in 1838) and became popular alongside another emerging brand new newfangled technology called….photography. Wheatstone actually used drawings to demonstrate his new discovery - photography had barely even been born at that point and only developed (sorry for the bad pun) from the following year.

This site may not end up going quite THAT far back in time just yet but it occurred to me that there are plenty of stereoscope formats from the UK in the 20th century which were well known for a while but have since fallen into obscurity as the popularity of stereoscopy as a hobby ebbed and flowed several times over the years. As a result, much now is unremembered or hard to find.

British stereoscopy covered everything other countries did - from scenic, travel and special interest views; views made for commercial purposes (company promotion, for example); hand drawn cartoons for kids… but also hundreds of collectable cigarette cards; giveaways with cereal - and all of these appeared in different formats with different viewers.

Everything from this…

Sightseer

to this…

Merit

and several points in between.

Without the views, stereo viewers (or stereoscopes) are just nice looking ornaments, of course. I have been fortunate to find many; from drawings to 35mm colour kodachrome stereo slides, from film rolls (or strips) to prints. So what I’d like to do on the site is focus also (sorry, another bad pun) on the stereo views associated with all these formats…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, perhaps, heard of, in some cases). I will try and tell you what I know about the viewers and formats and refer you to other sites for further reading where I can.

These images are 60/70/80+ years old so a quick word on picture quality. Major scratches/dirt/dust I try to catch and correct with regular editing tools - there is NO AI recreation at work here, these are the original images. I occasionally come across stereo pairs where 1 half is underexposed and the other is over exposed - I am not extensively working on editing these, or recreating them with AI to make everything you see appear perfect, as there are hundreds of images to post and this project would be impossible to complete if I did, and work out very expensive. So please excuse any blemishes you see, which are on the originals I have. Similarly, on recreated stereo pairs, I have done my best to avoid windows violations - which sometimes appeared on the originals - while also keeping in as much of the original images as possible, not crop them. If I don't get every single one correct to your way of thinking...I've done my best. Some images were just not great stereo pairs in the first place - but don't worry, plenty were.

Stereo views will be reproduced as 3 images (left image/right image/left image) - so those of you who free view or cross eye view can both see the images without a viewer. The exceptions will be Vistascreens or any other stereo prints - these are scanned and cleaned up as stereo pairs, and reproduced on the site as they first appeared (albeit sometimes cleaned up a bit) - free viewing or using a viewer will see these just fine. Every image can be clicked on to enlarge and fill your screen, so whether you're on a phone, laptop or monitor, should be viewable at a good size. I won't be converting anything to anaglyphs - but any British anaglyph views I do have will at some point make their way onto the site, assuming I can scan and reproduce them correctly.

So whether it be Vistascreen, Sightseer, True-View (yes, I spelled that one right), or Sterolist (and yes, I spelled that one correctly too) - or anything else we come across along the way - my hope is you will find plenty of period stereo views from British companies to enjoy here over the coming months and years, along with some information on the formats behind them.

The Collection Index at the top of the page lists all viewer articles on the site so far; while the All Views page will give you a list of links to check out the view sets for each viewer.

I should also add that I do not pretend to know everything - so if you read anything here and have some relevant information, or think I got something wrong, feel free to get in touch.

For me, stereo views are a little like time travel and like stepping into a scene in the past - and I know I'm not the first enthusiast to say that! So if this sounds like YOUR cup of tea too - why not subscribe to the accompanying SUBSTACK NEWSLETTER? This will summarise all new additions to this site in an email - with a link to the full articles here, as well as include anything else stereo related that doesn't quite fit on the site. Alternatively, just bookmark or add this site to your favourites and remember to stop by regularly and see what's new!

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