P3D Re: Backlit viewer for steroscopis tissues ?

[Oliver Dean <3d-image@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Robert A. Schreiber" wrote:
> 
>      Is anyone familiar with a backlit viewer for tissues ?  I've tried
> a Brewster, but not enough light goes through the tissue to see it well
> - or even hardly, truthfully - with the mirror closed, and with the
> mirror open, no color shows at all !  So far, a simple Holmes is best,
> but surely there is something else..

Hi, Bob!

At a used camera show some years ago I bought an antique viewer that was
clearly made for viewing tissues.  Like an old Brewster, it has a
fold-up mirror on top for redirecting overhead light onto the face of
the view for opaque or Daguerrotype viewing, but it also has a ground
glass back for "steal-the-light" viewing of transparencies, including
tissues; the ground-glass viewing capability is limited only by the
brightness of the light at which you point it.  It was about $70 or $80,
as I remember it, and it has a nice burled wood finish, although the
black paint on the lens housings is damaged (the lenses themselves are
OK).  Paul Wing gave me a nice tissue of the extinct Tuileries at
Versailles taken before the building burned down in the 1800's, and I
enjoy looking at it in this viewer, alternating between the opaque view
and the translucent view.  

You should be able to find something like it with a little searching. 
If it doesn't have a nameplate or manufacturer identification (mine
doesn't), it should cost a lot less than the others that can be
identified and have a higher antique value.  People who are more
"collection" oriented than I, can give you more details on what to look
for and what you should expect to pay.

Cordially,
Oliver Dean