Most of us are familiar with the Viewmaster product - round reels of small pictures that appear in 3-D through a special viewer. There have been many different formats of the product over the years, and several corporate owners. The number of new releases is way down but it's fairly easy to pick up a plastic viewer and start enjoying these 3D trips to the past. For more information on Viewmasters in general please visit the Viewmaster Ultimate Reel List.
Zorro has been released on Viewmaster reels several times, beginning in 1958, under the catalog number B469. Each set of 21 scenes came on 3 reels. The cover art is the only appreciable difference between the different editions, as the 3-D pictures themselves were identical over the years. Versions were released both with a small booklet describing the photos and without the booklet.
The three reels in these packages are titled Don Diego Plays The Fox, Zorro Rides Tornado, and Zorro's Flaming Sword.
S4 variant: 1958
S5 variant: circa 1960-1963
S6 variant, edition C: circa 1963-1966
G1 variant, edition A:
circa 1967-1969
RP-3086
Released by GAF as part of their "Reel-Pack" series in the 1970s under the umbrella title "Old Time Disney Favorites".
NB469 and NB469-F (French version)
Known as the Viewmaster 8" Packet Sets. On Kodachrome reels in 8 x 8 cardboard holders with graphics, often sought after for their value as framed collectibles.
A number of foreign language editions were produced in Belgium and released overseas:
Set
Country
Styles
B469-D
Germany
GAF packet-book
B469-E
England
GAF/GAF packet-book
B469-F
France
S6/GAF packet-book
B469-N
The Netherlands
S6/GAF/GAF packet-book
B469-S
Spain
G1
Germany
France
True-Vue
In addition to the popular Viewmaster product, there was also the Tru-Vue system, a less-well known competitor in the 3-D field. True-Vue used a rectangular card of photos instead of the disc format favored by Viewmaster. One set of Zorro photos was released in 1957 as set D-24. While the cards themselves turn up from time to time, the viewers are harder to find than the Viewmaster ones, and thus the cards are in relatively low demand.
