View-Master

Put in a reel, hold it to your eyes and start clicking through a little world of 3-D pictures.

Put in a reel, hold the View-Master up to your eyes, and start clicking through the pictures. Each click moves to another 3-D scene, and with the viewer blocking out everything around you, it really did feel a little like looking into another world. Was it a precursor to modern virtual reality headsets? No, not really. But it was an interesting early way to experience photography in 3-D, and full-length 3-D films were still decades away.

The original View-Master dates all the way back to 1939, when it was introduced at the New York World's Fair. It wasn't originally intended mainly as a children's toy - the attraction was the three-dimensional effect created by displaying two nearly identical images captured from slightly different perspectives. So, early reels showed scenic views of national parks, tourist attractions, and other places - not material geared toward children.

That changed in the 1950s when View-Master acquired rights to Disney characters. Soon you could find reels featuring Disneyland, Disney movies, television shows, and plenty of other subjects that were a lot more interesting to kids than scenic views of the Grand Canyon.

There are still plenty of View-Master reels available today - lots of animal themes, plenty of Disney themes (many with accompanying books), and you can even get a custom reel with your own 3-D images.

There have been many versions of View-Master over the years, but the classic red plastic viewer is the one I remember. Hold it up to your eyes, stick the reel in the top, and start clicking through true three-dimensional images.