Amateur Views: was/ARE stereo's future

[P3D Bill C Walton <bill3dbw3d@xxxxxxxx>]

John Roberts wrote he had never seen an antique amateur
stereo view.  
All I can say is he either has not been to an NSA Convention/
Trade show, or if he has he wasn't looking very hard.  There 
have always been lots of amateur views in  the trade shows
I've attended since 1985

Amateur stereographers have been "doing their thing" since 
stereo's beginning.  Some groups are better known than 
others like first iteration of the Amateur Photographic 
Exchange in the 1860s, the Stereoscopic Society which 
started in Great Britain in 1893, The Stereoscopic Society-
American Branch, which started in 1919 and is still going 
strong. 

There were approximately 8 million commercial stereo cards 
produced from about 1850 to the late 1920s, according to
WC Darrah's "World of Stereographs"  The last commercial
produced cards were apparently those made of President 
Eisenhower, by Keystone, in the 1950s.

There is no way of counting the number of amateur views that  
have been produced.  But, during stereo's hey-day, every major
manufacturer built and sold amateur stereo cameras.  If there 
had not been a market, the cameras would not have been built.

I have a little over 700 antique stereographs in my collection and 
30/35 are amateur stereographs.  I could have bought more of them
but I only buy those that interest me.  Some of the amateur views are 
well mounted and some are not.  All of them suffer from a lack of 
basic information on the label, but that is also true of some commercial
stereographs.  I have produced almost 2500 of my own and I try to 
make sure that they are all labeled so that someone will be able to 
tell something about them, should they see them at some future date.

Tex Treadwell produced a two volume book titled "Stereographers 
of the World" in 1994. It is available in print or on diskette from the
NSA 
Book Service.  I would think that anyone interested in stereo history
would want a copy of this book in their library.  He covers
stereographers
from early times up to and including some of those who are currently
shooting.  

I THINK,    unless there are some major changes, that amateur
stereographers, 
both slide and print, are the future for stereo.  This may prove to be
wrong and 
I hope it is.

The 2d part of Roberts question was about portrait stereographers.
  Perhaps the most famous of these was J. Gurney in New York.
  He produced some wonderful stereo images of famous 
people of that time

BILL C WALTON
bill3dbw3d@xxxxxxxxx


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