8 replies to this topic

[sonar]

As some of you know, I spend a lot of time in hospital when I was little.
And without cable television, video player of internet there wasn't a lot to do so my parents got me a view-master.
Together with the viewer they gave me a few disc among which a few with motorsport pictures from the 1960's and the Jacky Ickx ones.
Years later I found a few other discs in a charity shop with pictures from the 1981 Dutch Grand Prix.
The quality of the pictures varies, but the ones from the 1960's are amazing.
Because the pictures are 3D it's almost as if you're there in person.

Does anybody here know if there are any other discs than the ones I've already mentioned?
I can't find a lot of information on the internet about it and I wonder who took all these pictures and if they were taken for Fisher Price especially of from an archive.

[2F-001]

Ah - Viewmaster! I still have mine somewhere…

I had a 3-reel set called 'Automobile Racing' which had some images from European GPs of the mid-60s and some from sports car events at Spa, possibly Le Mans and even some F3. I think I had another racing set too, but I can't remember what it was. (Others I had were travel and geographic subjects, US space program pre-Apollo, London Airport, Royal Navy; I think my Mum would buy me a set whenever she found one she thought I might like on sale at a reduced price - I think they must have been quite expensive otherwise).

Some of the sets came with a little booklet, but I don't remember if the they credited individual photographers; they possibly had a large roster of freelancers who names could now be long lost. To work properly I think they have to taken as stereo pairs from life, so I imagine most must have been taken with the 3D effect in mind. I'm sure there was camera too, for taking your own 3D pictures.

I had no idea they were still being released as late as the 1981 disc you mentioned.

I think Viewmaster was made/marketed by Sawyer and then at least one other company before passing to Fisher Price.
I believe the original discs used Kodachrome, so many have aged well, whereas later they changed to an Ektachrome-type film (E4 or E6?) which degrades terribly over time.

There's a list of discs here http://www.3dstereo....Viewmaster-URL/
I've no idea how complete it is and I can see no alternative to looking through the whole list section by section and page by page (and there appears to be thousands of titles…) and only the single-disc issues seem to be dated on these lists.

[sonar]

You're right: my viewmaster isn't Fisher Price either. It has the name GAF on it. Whatever that means.
I think the discs you mentioned from the 60's are the same ones I've got.
Pictures from Spa, Le Mans, Hill, Clark etc.
I think they still make viewmaster discs or, at least, they did until a few years ago.
I have no small children so I haven't been in a toy shop for years.

There are thousands and thousands of different discs(sets).
I wondered why I can only find the discs from the Dutch Grand Prix. (I found a few sets online too)
You'd think that, if they made a set about the Dutch GP, they would also make sets about other GP's.
And if Jacky Ickx was the only driver featuring on viewmaster...

[Terry Walker]

GAF is/was a photographic film manufacturer, I think (German?).

You need a stereo camera to make stereo shots of moving objects, such as people and cars, but I have made stereo pairs of static subjects using an SLR. I took some of my old BMW bike, and some from my travels. It just involved taking a pic, transferring weight from one foot to the other, and taking a second shot. You only have to displace about 3 inches or more, the distance between your eyeball centres (I'm just guessing that measurement, I haven't run a ruler over my head). I did this inside the motor museum at Beaulieu years ago. They came out well.

You can now buy hi-res stereo camcorders if you happen to have a stereo equipped TV.

[MCS]

Viewmaster/GAF: Quite a bit of info on the internet - never quite convinced as to the accuracy, but I remember my Ickx slides.

Wow, they were good - as Solar rightly says. Looking back, I am actually bewildered as to how such a small transparency image in a cardboard wheel could produce such a life-like image.

Forty years ago. Maybe they knew/had something that it's taken decades to get to...?

[2F-001]

GAF is (or was) a company that made photographic and cine film and projectors, so presumably they bought ViewMaster or Sawyer's at some point.

It does seem odd there are not more motor sport discs; quality, colour pictures of GP cars were not seen so much in the press in the mid-60s so you'd have thought they'd have been a attractive subject that could find a market.
Mind you, apart from the masses of travelogue-type titles and children's film and story characters (I think GAF had some commercial tie-in with Disney) the other subjects are a bit random… maybe a lot of those were photographed speculatively by freelancers (of their own interests) and then sold to ViewMaster?

I don't have my discs here to look at but from memory a few of the racing pictures, whilst technically excellent, are are a bit 'ordinary', not stunningly memorable pictures, and some of the choices are a little odd for a more general audiences (e.g.: rear-end detail shot of the belt-drive DAF transmission F3 car? Well, more appropriate for you perhaps, Sonar!). Given there are only 21 images to a set, maybe they didn't actually have a big choice.
I still like them though.

[Alan Cox]

I remember Viewmaster well, although I never owned one myself. I can recall viewing a chum's set of racing discs in the mid-1960s and in particular I can remember one of a 1961 Porsche GP car - could it have been de Beaufort?

[sonar]

It does seem odd there are not more motor sport discs; quality, colour pictures of GP cars were not seen so much in the press in the mid-60s so you'd have thought they'd have been a attractive subject that could find a market.
Mind you, apart from the masses of travelogue-type titles and children's film and story characters (I think GAF had some commercial tie-in with Disney) the other subjects are a bit random… maybe a lot of those were photographed speculatively by freelancers (of their own interests) and then sold to ViewMaster?

I don't have my discs here to look at but from memory a few of the racing pictures, whilst technically excellent, are are a bit 'ordinary', not stunningly memorable pictures, and some of the choices are a little odd for a more general audiences (e.g.: rear-end detail shot of the belt-drive DAF transmission F3 car? Well, more appropriate for you perhaps, Sonar!). Given there are only 21 images to a set, maybe they didn't actually have a big choice.
I still like them though.

Appropriate for me because it's a rear-end or because it's a DAF..?

I've got the discs here in front of me and the first one's called 'G.T. and sportscars' and the 2e and 3e 'Formula one cars'.
The DAF picture somehow got in between the sportscar pictures.
The pictures are all over the place. First we're at Spa, then it's Le Mans, Spa again, then it's Monaco, Spa again, back to Monaco etc.
That's why it's so weird.

The second disc has a few close-up pictures of a Ferrari (the rear-end...) and a Honda (rear-end again...Lucky me), Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart with a B.R.M., John Surtees in a Ferrari, Jim Clark with Colin Chapman in the Lotus and then a few pictures from races ( French GP 1965, I think).

On the 3e disc we're in Monaco with Bandini, Brabham and Surtees.
After that i's the French GP again. I think we're at Clermont Ferrand, were we see Jimmy win the race.
Then it's back to Monaco again were we see Graham Hill win race.

I think we're all talking about the same set of discs.
Still wondering were the Zandvoort set came from.
There's no information at all on these discs. It just says 'Zandvoort'.
All the others have captions on them but not these.

[Rudernst]

a trip down memory lane...

we had Viewmasters as children
discs just animals and suchlike but we played with them a lot

I have just bought an old Viewmaster off Ebay egged on by this thread
now for some Motorsport discs.....

what a throwback in the times of the Iphone

Rudolf

Edited by Rudernst, 13 August 2013 - 15:09.