ViewMaster Night Before Christmas and the Christmas Mouse Reel
There is only one night before Christmas, but the folks at View-Master presented that night in a variety of fascinating ways. Take a journey to some View-Master "Night(s) Before Christmas".
FT-30
In 1952, ViewMaster produced what was to become a very popular single reel numbered FT-30 entitled "The Night Before Christmas or a Visit from St. Nicholas." Â Accompanying the reel in its sleeve was a small, fold-out booklet with Clement C. Moore's Christmas poem.
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Another very limited FT-30 reel was produced with special holiday decorations around the edge. The Christmas images are identical to the earlier reel. It is believed that this green and red decorated reel was made for in-house staff and/or special purpose and was never available available for general sale. Today, these are truly scarce.
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." . . . . . and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse".
View-Master introduces the family mouse:
FT-29
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Around 1955, FT-29 began production where Sawyer's (View-Master) introduces the household's family mouse. Three new images are created showing the family mouse fully participating and enjoying all the emotions of the night before Christmas. FT-29 did not see the production numbers that FT-30 did, so that today it remains 'uncommon' amongst View-Master treasures still extant.
Welcome the Tru-Vue Cards:
During the early 1950s, Sawyer's (View-Master) purchased the Tru-Vue Company from Rock Island, Illinois, a 3D product competitor, making 3D filmstrips. Â The factory was moved to Beaverton, Oregon and for a short time Sawyer's continued making filmstrips.
John Dennis offers a complete look at this process with his article, Copyright © 1980 by John Dennis and the National Stereoscopic Association (NSA).
From the beginning, Sawyer's assigned their new Tru-Vue division the children's story market and sold them in toy stores while View-Master products remained selling in department store's photo departments and souvenir shops. The new product was Tru-Vue cards where Images were produced on a vertical, rectangular card. These Tru-Vue cards featured subjects like Robin Hood, all the Disney characters, Buck Rogers, but also a limited selection of scenic titles
Images from the View-Master reel, FT-29 were included onto the Tru-Vue Card, S-2, "The Night Before Christmas". Here the family mouse plays a major role as he and Santa are rendered together as a working team on the main picture and text on the card face.
Although the Tru-Vue card images are larger than View-Master reel's images, sadly, for collectors today, Tru-Vue card film was not archival, and the colors in the film used soon faded, but the images remained sharp..Â
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TRU-VUE issued ALBUMS placing 3 related cards into a sleeve. Â In this manner, they sold more cards. Â In 1957, there were 23 three card albums available.
