View Master Model C in Original Box with Reels Israel / Jerusalem

This is an early 1950s model c View Master made of black bakelite. With the viewer are 3 complete packets of 3 reels each: c820 b226 b224 all of the Holy Land and Jerusalem. Also included are 4 separate reels from the 1940s of Jerusalem. The viewer and reels are all incased in an original leather case with handle. View-Master was first introduced at the New York World's Fair in 1939. The Model C was the first manufactured in 1946 It was called the Deluxe Stereoscope and featured top loading reels: the user was no longer required to open the viewer and place each reel on the spindle before viewing it. Stereocraft Engineering created this new design and it remains the basic principle applied to all viewers made ever since then. Production of this model ceased in 1955. William Gruber was a German immigrant, an organ maker and an avid photographer who was interested in stereo photography. Sawyer's president Harold Graves had a opportune meeting with the young German immigrant in 1938. Sawyer's Inc. a Portland Oregon publisher of photo postcards were always looking for ways to expand, so Graves realized that his company was in an ideal position to run with Gruber's idea, and the young immigrant soon joined Sawyer's to make his idea, of printing stereo photograph pairs, as small transparencies, mounting them on a reel to be viewed with a simple hand viewer, a reality.