Disneyland 50th Anniversary View-Master Set

[merlinjones]

Why isn't there a Disneyland 50th Anniversary View-Master set? - - With all of those priceless 3-D negatives from DL history, it's truly a natural for the occaision and would be a spectacular souvenier of the 50th. The marketers have missed the boat here so far, but it's not too late...

[Sparky]

Originally Posted by merlinjones

Why isn't there a Disneyland 50th Anniversary View-Master set? - - With all of those priceless 3-D negatives from DL history, it's truly a natural for the occaision and would be a spectacular souvenier of the 50th. The marketers have missed the boat here so far, but it's not too late...

There is one for sale at Disneyland, but, although there are some neat pictures included in it, it was poorly compiled.

[merlinjones]

>>There is one for sale at Disneyland, but, although there are some neat pictures included in it, it was poorly compiled.<<

I hadn't seen it! What if shame if they blew it. Where do they sell it? Emporium? World of Disney?

[Sparky]

Yes, it's in the Emporium, and probably other shops as well. Not sure about WoD, but would guess they'd have it, too.

I wrote a "review" of it for the LA NFFC newsletter. I'll try to find it on my computer at home and post that, or excerpts from it, here.

[Druggas]

Good call Merlin.

[merlinjones]

You know I pulled up a shot of the package on the net and the shots that they feature on the box are just the same old 2-D publicity photos which I assume they made into 3-D via computer. Did they not use the true 3-D camera shots from all of the old VM packets in this???

[FrumiousBoojum]

Well, on the bright side, a photo of the castle taken in the 50s was included in the View-Master 75th Anniversary set.

The biggest problem is that ever since GAF bought View-Master and even moreso afterwards when Fisher-Price took over the View-Master line -- they don't care. It's merely looked at as a child's toy. There's little to no quality control, they rarely cater to the collectors at all (which is why just 6 blank reels can run for $100 on eBay -- all because they refused to fix a broken machine).

I was never expecting even what you found, really. There are only two major manufacturers of VM reels: one that produces the travel and educational reels (not affiliated with Mattel, but liscensed to produce) and Fisher-Price. Disney only has it's 50+ year contract with Mattel.

BTW: Disneyland reels were the first Disney reels to be produced on the View-Master format thanks to Sawyer's purchase of the True-View contract a couple years earlier in order to, not only get the major competition off the market, but also to get such contracts as Disney.

There were dual formats of 3-D Disneyland when it first opened, too, because of that contract. For the first few years of Disneyland, you could buy a Sawyer's True-View card or a View-Master reel. I believe the True-View cards are the rarer of the two.