Underwood and Underwood commenced manufacturing stereoscopes and cards in the 1880’s, and by 1900 they were selling 300,000 stereoscopes a year and producing 25,000 cards a day. A large volume of their photographic work survives to this day.A popular item which was in common use around 1900. The cards used, provide a useful view of people and places around that time. They were pioneers in the field of news photography. Many of their images are still available today.Metal viewing section with glass inserts with wooden extension with a sliding viewing section with metal brackets. Metal part has figured marking around top. It has a fold down wooden handle with metal hinge.Manuf’d Underwood & Underwood Patented June 11 1901Foreign patents applied for.warrnambool, stereoscope, underwood & underwood

This item was in a cabin trunk that belonged to Henry Frencham which also included his Petition to Parliament and the findings from the Parliamentary enquiry into his and other claims to be the first to find gold at Bendigo. A stereoscope is a device for viewing a stereoscopic pair of separate images, depicting left-eye and right-eye views of the same scene, as a single three-dimensional image.A dark brown wooden half centimetre thick base with curved edges varying in width from eight centimetres, twelve centimetre, seven centimetres and ten centimetres. A half centimetre by half centimetre piece of wood with a grove in it is glued to one end. On the other end an oval shaped half centimetre thick, twelve centimetres long and five centimetres wide, has two three centimetre diametre glass lenses in it and is attached by a small single hinge so it can be folded against the other piece for storage or raised to right angles to look through the lenses at an image in the groove at the end of the base piece.steroscope, henry frencham

Stereoscopes work on the principle of viewing left and right eye images of the same image and in the process having the image appear as 3 dimensional. The have been popular since the middle of the 19th century.The Holmes version of this object was manufactured cheaply and became widely available, hence it is an object with which many people would be familiar.Wooden oval shaped with glass viewing inserts. Extension in cross shape with wire brackets either side.warrnambool, stereoscope, holmes stereoscope