stereo viewer of the mutoscope type: & nbsp , the Sculptoscope (id. 2068), made in the US in the 1920s by brothers Whiting . This display is made of sheet metal and cast iron and is driven with a penny coin. It contains within up to 90 stereo views cardboard inside. At the top it has two glass panels to allow the passage of light to illuminate the card. On the right side you have the coin slot
brothers Whiting (Richard Ross and William A.) worked as manufacturers of tidelands viewers from 1900 to 1943. Before forming his own business worked as vendors for Keystone . in 1913 created the American Novelty Company, and began manufacturing the Sculptoscope: stereo viewers for use in arcades or store counters for a penny user could display 15 images. stereo, although the device contained 90 views cardboard. in 1913 patented a first model of vertical box, and in 1922 did the same with the model we have in our collection. in the picture below you can see the patent of the Sculptoscope.
most of these devices used lithographs rather than actual photographs, many of them specially delivered to the Whiting View Company by . Truman Ward Ingersoll (1862-1992), one of the greatest photographers Americans stereo images of the nineteenth century views were pre-cut samples to that fitted in the internal support of the Sculptoscope. viewers were sold in local stores and their stereo views often reminded to the client that should patronize the store.
in the image shown below (taken by itself Richard Ross Whiting) is portrayed the Whiting family having a picnic at Coney Island, near the Ohio (Cincinnati) river.
