The Private Photos of a Master of 3D Photography
One incredibly lucky purchase led me down 100 rabbit holes.
In the 1950s, View-Master had a complete end-to-end photography system that meant average Joe’s could take their own 3-D photos and make their own View-Master reels at home. While personal reels are incredible 3-D snapshots in time, finding good quality photos in vintage personal reels is a challenge for most collectors, though there are some incredible exceptions.
Fortuitously, I also have a small collection of personal reels that includes incredible exceptions. In August of 2021, I happened to score an eBay “buy it now” set-price listing of personal reels. It was just over $100, plus shipping, and I knew it was a good deal because personal reels go for well north of $3 each these days (and much more since the pandemic, don’t even get me started!) and this lot was for roughly 100 reels. It was also intriguing to me because the listing noted that the reels were created by someone who was exceptionally well-traveled — with stops in England, Spain, and France, among others.
When the lot arrived, I took a look at a couple of reels in a viewer and was immediately shocked by the clarity and composition. The reels were in great condition and the photography was even better.
I noticed pretty quickly that many of the places covered in the personal reels lined up with locales of View-Master reels I already had. Topics included places — from Seville, Spain to Lourdes, France — and specific events like behind-the-scenes photos at a circus and on-the-ground photography from a bullfight.
Then I noticed that Rupert Leach was listed in the owner field on the envelopes. The name sounded familiar but I didn’t immediately place it. Once I did some digging around, I remembered: Rupert Leach was director of photography for Sawyer’s and View-Master and he was the man they sent around the globe to take photos for them. I was absolutely stunned and giddy. Could they possibly be his personal reels? Why would he even make personal reels?
Initially I assumed these were test reels, but after conferring with a couple of expert collectors via Facebook and looking over each of the reels, I had to conclude that these were not test reels since View-Master didn’t do commercial test runs in the personal reel format. And, once I looked at each of the reels, it was clear they were alternate images when compared to the ones in the mass-produced reels. They were also more personal: Several featured Rupert’s wife Poppy looking directly at the camera.
One thing I learned from these reels is that Rupert Leach had become a good friend of View-Master inventor William Gruber. One especially poignant reel has just five photos (unlike the usual seven) and it documents a hike Leach took to honor his deceased friend. I’ve read that Gruber loved to take photos of the natural beauty of Portland and coastal Oregon and, after his death, a memorial of his footprints was placed at one of his favorite spots.
While getting these incredible reels solved one major View-Master mystery for me, it also created more. I’ll be posting more about Leach, his reels and his work at View-Master in the coming months, but I felt like I had to offer up an origin story on how I got these reels and what they included before I did any further dives into the various topics that came up because of them.
As always, thank you for reading! This post is public, so feel free to share it and leave a comment if you liked it.
The picture of the Mercedes 190SL.........It was owned by Karl Kurz, a design engineer at Sawyer's.