View-Master reels of Elizabeth II's coronation

With this View-Master reel, you could have your very own souvenir of Queen Elizabeth II's 1953 coronation – in three-dimensional colour! It turned a royal milestone into a vivid, immersive experience and was an example of how the new monarch's coronation captured the public imagination using innovative technology. Each cardboard View-Master reel displays seven pairs of stereoscopic images. Seeing the slightly different paired images through a View-Master gives an illusion of depth and creates the 3D effect. At the request of Elizabeth II, her coronation was the first to be televised, making history and drawing an incredible global audience of 277 million people. Since television hadn’t yet reached Australia, royal fans rushed to cinemas to watch films and newsreels sent from London – on a Qantas flight that set a record-breaking journey of 53 hours and 28 minutes.