British Vintage Stereoscopy — Viewer
SIGHTSEER
A catalogue entry from the collection
| Name | Sightseer |
| Manufacturer | A.P.I. Ltd |
| Date Period | Early 1950s? |
| Materials | Bakelite(?), glass, metal |
| Format | 35mm B/W roll film |
Sightseer viewer.
Caption for left photo.
Caption for right photo.
Sightseer is one of the rarer and more mysterious British formats with very little information available. We don’t know the year it was first sold, how long for, or very much at all about the manufacturer. Early 1950s - or around the same time as the more often seen True-View viewer - would seem to be a sensible guess; perhaps something in one of the stereo views will be able to provide a clue, when I get through them all. We DO know the name of the British manufacturer - both the films and viewer were made by the Visual Aids Division of A.P.I. Ltd - but they seem to have disappeared before the creation of any historical company records that exist online today. Any information you have that would provide more information would be welcome!
Sightseer was a 35mm black and white film roll stereoscopy format, similar to True-View, and was distributed by Photax (London) Ltd - a manufacturer and distributor of general photographic equipment. There was one type of viewer (made in various colour combinations). While “patent applied for” appears on every viewer, I’ve never seen a photo of a viewer with any actual patent details on it.
The viewer is a little larger and heavier than the True-View, and possibly made of bakelite, rather than the moulded plastic used in the latter. Despite the bare metal lever (I have yet to see a photo of one with this trimmed in plastic), the Sightseer feels better built compared to the True-View. It consisted of 2 plastic main halves, each in different colours held together by 4 screws - which makes it relatively simple to clean and maintain the viewer. Mine arrived completely seized up, but I was able to unscrew it, add some lubricant to the lever and spring, and get it working again easily. The lenses appear to be glass.
I've seen 2 tone green, grey and maroon, brown and grey viewers - the green ones seem to be the most common. The film rolls were first sold in small metal film canisters - which look very cool and high quality - but probably got replaced fairly quickly as being too expensive; most I have seen come in cardboard boxes (similar to True-View and Tru-Vue). Sightseer rolls are rare enough - finding them in the film canisters especially so.
The film was threaded into a slot in 1 side of the viewer and the user would then advance the film through the viewer by pulling on the bare metal lever underneath. Despite the similarities to the True-View viewer, they were not compatible - Sightseer images were 4 perforations wide (the same specification as the much earlier American Novelview system) - and narrower than the 5-perforation format used by True-View. Oddly enough though, if you have an American Tru-Vue viewer, Sightseer rolls will fit in those. But this compatibility is one way - Tru-Vue rolls don’t fit in the Sightseer viewer (I know, I tried).
Ultimately, I suspect the more fiddly and laborious process to advance views through the viewer (compared to the far easier View-Master) probably contributed to the early demise of TrueView and Sightseer - but you did at least get more views. View-Master was limited to 7 colour stereo shots on a reel, Sightseer featured 16 captioned stereo images (so 32 photo frames in total) plus a title frame, of course - albeit in black and white.
I have found 66 films known to have been issued so far, focusing on mainly British subjects: towns and cities, transportation, coastal resorts etc. Some sources have previously suggested over 200 rolls were produced but I think that’s more an assumption based on the numbering system used to identify each film roll; a list of all titles I’ve noted as existing so far can be found HERE.
Further Reading & Web Links
Image Sets To View (More to be added over time)
- SS-124 - Channel Cruise
- Title of Views Set 2
- Title of Views Set 3
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