ExtraDays

By ExtraDays

Coronation in Stereo

I have hundreds of ViewMaster Stereo reels like these. Most of them I made myself after I bought an entire kit at a flea market years ago. The kit came with a stereo camera, a device for cutting the developed 35mm slide film into the tiny bits that you insert into blank reels. The kit came with all the reels the prior owner had made, which included several of her parakeets in a cage, her San Francisco home, and the National Cemetery there. But, it also came with a number of commercial reels of scenic places in the US, and my favorite: Queen Elizabeth's Coronation in 1953.
Each reel has seven stereo views; one on the Coronation reel shows the Golden Coach going along streets crowded with onlookers - exactly like what we've all seen this past week of the funeral for the Queen. One major difference, besides that of celebration and of mourning, is how the onlookers tried to get a look at the procession. This time, people held up their phone cameras, but in 1952 many of them were standing with their backs to the procession, holding up cardboard periscopes or simply holding up mirrors. I wish I could figure out a way to enlarge the tiny bits of film so I could show them to you. 

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