Coronet 3D1953

History

Stereo photography had existed since the Victorian era -- stereoscopes were a popular parlor entertainment in the 1850s and 1860s -- but experienced a significant revival in the early 1950s, driven partly by the availability of color slide film and partly by the 3D film craze that swept Hollywood from 1952 onward with films such as "Bwana Devil" and "House of Wax." American manufacturers including the Stereo Realist (1947) and Kodak Stereo Camera (1954) served the mid-market, while the View-Master Personal Stereo Camera targeted the hobbyist.

Coronet Camera Co., a Birmingham manufacturer better known for simple box cameras and cheap novelty cameras sold through Woolworths and similar mass-market retailers, introduced the 3D in 1953 as a budget stereo option for the British market. The camera was aimed squarely at consumers attracted to the stereo craze who could not or would not spend on the Stereo Realist, which retailed at a price comparable to a professional camera.

Coronet produced the 3D in small quantities alongside its other cheap camera offerings. The company continued making simple and novelty cameras through the 1960s before eventually ceasing operations; the 3D was among the more unusual products in a lineup that included simple box cameras and novelty shapes.

127 film remained commercially available through the late twentieth century in declining quantity and is today produced by a small number of specialty suppliers, making the Coronet 3D shootable but requiring planning.

Why It Matters

The Coronet 3D occupies a specific cultural niche: it is the British mass-market answer to a short-lived but intense popular enthusiasm for three-dimensional imagery. The early 1950s stereo craze was real and widespread -- 3D films played in cinemas, 3D picture postcards were sold at tourist sites, and consumer stereo cameras sold in significant numbers -- and the Coronet 3D represents the lowest accessible point of entry to that craze in the British market.

As a Bakelite artifact, the camera is also representative of Birmingham's postwar light manufacturing industry, which produced a range of consumer goods in Bakelite and early plastics. Coronet's cameras were sold through Woolworths at price points accessible to working-class buyers, occupying in the British market a role similar to what Argus and Ansco occupied in the American market.

For contemporary photographers, the Coronet 3D is a conversation piece and a curiosity: a camera that requires its own viewer to see the results, uses a format that demands specialty film, and produces images that are genuinely different in character from anything a conventional camera produces.

Sample Photographers / Notable Use

• Sold through Woolworths and similar British high-street mass-market retailers from 1953 onward; used by British amateur photographers attracted to the early-1950s stereo photography craze.
• Collected as an artifact of postwar British consumer culture, Birmingham light manufacturing, and the short-lived 1950s stereo craze.
• Occasionally used by contemporary film photographers interested in stereo photography as a low-cost alternative to the Stereo Realist or Kodak Stereo Camera.

References

• Camera-Wiki: Coronet 3D -- specifications and historical context

Kodak Gold 200 is a daylight-balanced C-41 color negative film with warm color, moderate grain, and a classic consumer-film look.