Welcome

British Vintage Stereoscopy

Welcome

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 the UK once upon a time). 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 - and some of what is out there is contradictory or inaccurate.

What I'd like to do with this site is eventually make it a reliable and perhaps definitive reference point for British stereoscopy. So if anyone sees a British viewer or format, they know that by coming here they can find out reliable, accurate information about that, along with example views and relevant links for further reading.

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 many formats with many 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. So what I’d like to do on the site is focus also 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 can be a hundred years old in some cases so a quick word on picture quality. There are NO AI recreations here. Major scratches/dirt/dust I try to catch and correct with regular editing tools - otherwise these are the original images. Any flaws you see were on the original and I couldn't fix them. So please excuse any imperfections. On recreated stereo pairs (digitised film strips or slides, for example), I have done my best to avoid windows violations - which did sometimes appear on the originals - while also keeping in as much of the original image as possible. 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.

Recreated stereo views are 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. Stereo prints (eg Vistascreen, Camerascope etc) 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, they 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 an ever increasing number of period stereo views to enjoy here over the coming months and years, along with information on the formats behind them.

I should also add that while I am researching, correcting, finding out and presenting information - 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. This site will be a continuing work in progress for some years yet, I hope - if you have information you can share, please do.

The Collection Index at the top of the page lists all viewer articles on the site so far; while the All Views tab will list uploaded stereo view sets for each viewer, with links to each, if you just want to check out those. Or you can just check out that Blog Archive list on the right of your screen, which lists all the latest posts.

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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