P3D Viewer help

["David W. Kesner" <drdave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Someone I work with brought in an old viewer they found in an attic 
and thought was for 3D slides. I have never seen or heard of this 
viewer. I would appreciate any and all info.

It is called a Tower Pan Ram Slide Viewer (No. 6385) and is made or 
sold by Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Simpson-Sears Limited. It is made 
of black plastic and has a light (Westinghouse No. 13 bulb) on top 
run by three D cell batteries. The instructions have a copyright of 
1955 and patent Nos. 2,581,000, 2,698,553 and Canadian Patent No. 
493,600. It claims "gives life-like 3-D appearance to individual 35mm 
or 828 slides"; "automatically enlarges pictures 4 times with 
brilliance and clarity ... emphasizes the feeling of being right 
there in the picture"; "completely new optical design ... for more 
perfect viewing of individual slides"; "roomy, unobstructed 
viewfinder ... provides easy, comfortable 2-eye viewing, ideal for 
people wearing glasses".

You place a slide flat on the top of the viewer and it projects 
through a convex lens on to the back of a two-way mirror at a 45 
degree angle on to a concave front-surface? mirror. You look through 
the 45 degree two-way mirror to the image on the concave mirror.

Definitely not 3-D, but it does give a strange new "dimension" to the 
slide.

Thanks,

David W. Kesner
Boise, Idaho, USA
drdave@xxxxxxxxxx


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