Posted on 03/11/2009 9:22:00 AM PDT by Borges
Amber LaPointe's introduction to one of the country's greatest tourist attractions came from small square pictures on a white wheel.
"It was like you could look into a world away," said the 28-year-old from Toledo, Ohio. "My only image of the Grand Canyon was from the View-Master."
The iconic reels of tourist attractions, often packaged with a clunky plastic viewer and first sold to promote 3-D photography, are ending their 70-year run after years of diminishing sales.
Collectors like Mary Ann Sell of Maineville, Ohio, are dismayed.
"The whole summer I was 5 years old, before I went to school, I traveled the world via View-Master. It was great, and now kids won't have the opportunity to do that," said Sell, 57, who owns upwards of 25,000 scenic reels.
Scenic discs are no longer a good fit
for the Fisher-Price division of toy maker Mattel Inc., a spokeswoman said, and the company stopped making them in December. Fisher-Price, based in East Aurora, N.Y., will keep making better-selling reels of Shrek, Dora the Explorer and other animated characters, spokeswoman Juliette Reashor said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
“Thank God for eBay and yard sales - can still get more disks.”
Reels are still cheap and easy to find. I bought someone’s old collection on eBay a couple years ago with lots and lots of reels. My kids love playing viewmaster!
any way to get pics?
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Loved those things.
There was something ultra-cool about slipping in a reel and flipping through the pictures. It was transporting.
I would have thought those were gone ages ago. I guess I saw a few when I was younger...maybe 1981 or so at 12 years old. Have not seen them in years and did not even think of getting them for my kids, but I am sure that some liked them even today.
Holy cow! I had no idea they had hung on this long.
What are we going to do for views of the world after civilization collapses? [re: the scene in “Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome” when the kids show him the old pix in the Viewmaster, along with their recitation]
Have you considered selling the set online?
Point that’s not being understood here:
THE VIEWMASTER IS STILL MANUFACTURED.
THE “SCENIC IMAGES” TYPE OF REELS ARE GONE.
D’oh! The scenic ones were the only ones I liked. I always thought the cartoon ones were lame; they are like looking at a 3D picture of cardboard cutouts.
Dang! Those things were fun!
They need to reinvent this thing with a computer chip in it. Then it will sell again.
They need to reinvent this thing with a computer chip in it. Then it will sell again.
They need to reinvent this thing with a computer chip in it. Then it will sell again.
The one I most remember was Queen Elizabeth’s coronation
I bought one of these for my grandson as a stocking stuffer at Christmas- I bought him one with several reels of animals since he really likes all sorts of critters and learning about them. He checked it all out and hasn’t touched it since; it just can’t compete with his video games. I wondered then how popular they are with today’s kids.
Nooooooooooooo!
The ‘Peanuts’ discs were fantastic. I knew all the plots from reading the strips compiled into paperback books but the statues (?) and sets used for the 3-D reels were amazing. Such detail. Wonder where those props are now.
No pictures, but if you do a search, there are several you can see on the internet. After I was momentarily blinded by the several thousand dollar price on one of the internet pages (and found out it wasn’t true), I decided to keep it. After all, I have had it for 40+ years and my father had it for 20 years before that.
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