Set of picture reels for 'View-Master'; 'Pompeii', Technofilm, Italy ca.1970

A set of four picture reels, numbered 'POMPEI I to POMPEI IV'. Each circular reel is made up of 14 colour photograph stills secured between yellow card with text descriptions, numbered 1 to 7, printed in Italian on one side of the card wheel. Each reel has its own paper storage envelope, printed in yellow, black, red and white with the text 'Sterorama' printed on the front and a central hole through which the details of reel can be viewed when it's stored inside. The back of the envelope contains handling instructions. An outer envelope features a colour photo of Pompeii with the text: '3D STEREORAMA' in large letters above the photo. The back of the outer envelope was originally sealed with a 2cm length of sticky tape, which is still attached to the paper envelope in two places.

Given by Janis Pegrum Smith

The View-Master was the brainchild of William Gruber, a piano tuner and camera enthusiast who first developed the idea in the late 1930s whilst recuperating from surgery in hospital. The 'Talking View-Master' introduced another dimension to the 3D viewing experience as it showed not just stereoscopic colour images but could also produce an accompanying sound using an internal mechanism to play a tiny phonograph record attached to the reverse of each picture reel. The sound quality wasn't very good on early models, however improvements were made to the sound mechanism during the 1980s.

The View-Master has been relaunched many times, and has progressed through some novel alterations. Gruber died in 1965 and the company was sold to the General Aniline and Film Corporation (GAF). The Talking View-Master was launched in 1970 at a time when the traditional View-Master was declining in popularity as electronic toys began to take a larger share of the market; it was manufactured in its original form until 1981. Talking View-Masters use a simple system: each talking picture reel has a small, free running phonographic record attached and when inserted into the stereoscope, the audio disc and pictures are aligned by pressing a button. A sound bar can be depressed to engage the needle on the soundtrack which plays a sound clip for each picture. The sound stops at the end of each clip and the operator then advances the picture and restarts the audio commentary. This early version of the Talking View-Master, manufactured in a two-tone beige colour was superseded in later years by models in a USA themed red, white and blue colour.

By the 1970s GAF were offering a library of over 500 reel sets, available to purchase via mail order. As with all View-Masters, the types of reel available ranged from popular television and film productions, to purely scenic and educational. In the 1980s Michael Jackson signed a deal with View-Master to create Talking View-Master reels and he went on to produce a total of 25 reels, the first being a talking reel for ‘Thriller’ in 1984.

Janis Smith, the donor of this Talking View-Master, recalls vivid memories of her favourite childhood toy:

“I think the Talking View-master has its place as a technological toy of its time – a handheld device which delivered sound and vision in its rudimentary way, in 3D too! Though it did used to make your eyes ache after a time, and you would come away with indents on your face from the viewer, because it had been held so closely.

It was, without doubt, my favourite toy as a child. As it says on the box, it was both fun and educational. It was a present from my grandparents who used to regularly go to America to visit relatives who had emigrated there after WWII….My grandparents would bring me back discs for it from their travels, hence the tourist ones of Pompeii and the USA. I think the Pompeii ones and the Seven Wonders of the World helped broaden my horizons at an early age, and encourage my love of history. The story ones helped me a lot too, as I am dyslexic, though in the 1970s/80s this was unrecognised. The View-Master meant I could enjoy a story on my own without struggling with a book. Ironic now, as I am a writer by profession.

The Museum of Childhood was one of my favourite museums as a child. We lived not that far away and my mum would take me there often. I marvelled at the toys, and the stirrings of the writer in me would always wonder about the children who had owned the once much loved toys.

I looked after this precious toy so carefully as a child, though it was very much played with….My parents were very strict with how well I kept my toys.”

Janis also remembers the day she introduced her Talking View-Master toy to her own daughter:

“One rainy, summer holiday afternoon in the early 1990s, when my own daughter was about 6 or 7, I clambered up into the attic and, with much ceremony, brought the treasured View-master down to pass on to her. She watched eagerly as I lovingly lifted my old friend out of its box, and placed the first disc in. I showed her how to hold it up to her eyes and sat back satisfied that she would now enjoy the hours of endless pleasure from this magical device, just as I had. Humouring her excited mother, who was going on and on about how this had been her favourite toy when she was a child, Sophie clicked through a few frames and then dropped it from her eyes. “Boy, your childhood must have been sooooo boring,” she sighed, tossed the View-master carelessly aside and scampered off to put the computer on.”

This Italian picture reel set, featuring images of Pompeii, could be viewed using a 'Talking View-Master' which was the favourite childhood toy of a girl named Janis Smith. Janis was given the stereoscope and several sets of picture reels as a gift from her grandparents in the early 1970s and remembers the toy as being "absolutely magical and beguiling in its day".

A 'Talking View-Master' enables 3D pictures to be viewed either from picture reels such as these, which show images only, or from talking picture reels which produce sound and images. These Pompeii picture reels were designed to be viewed in a 'Stereorama' viewer which was an Italian brand of stereoscope modelled on the original American 'View-Master'. The 'Stereorama' took View-Master reels, although an extensive range of reels were manufactured specially for them.

Janis' grandparents bought her a 'Talking View-Master' in the USA when they were visiting relatives and it was more technologically advanced than anything available in the UK at the time. As Janis recalls "No one we knew had anything like this! My Talking View-Master was like 'space-age' technology in the 1970s English suburbs - we didn't even have VCR's at the time. It was such a marvel that friends would queue up to have a go with it." Janis' grandparents added to her collection of photo reels whenever they travelled overseas, returning with reels of images such as these ones from Pompeii and others from the USA which broadened Janis' horizons and, she believes, encouraged a love of history that has remained with her throughout her life. The types of reel available ranged from popular television and film productions, to purely scenic and educational. Janis' collection comprises twelve sets of reels, both talking and picture only reels, and includes 'Wizard of Oz', 'Tom & Jerry' and 'The Seven Wonders of the World.'

B.35:1 to 9-2017