COOL FIND: 1948 Vis-Ed "Big League Viewer" & tons of associated material

[rhettyeakley]

I know this "set" is from just after WW2 and should probably go in the postwar section but I thought there would be some interest from the board so I apologize for the slightly O/T nature of this thread.

Anyways, the 1949 Vis-Ed Cleveland Indians items are tough to find, but even tougher are the rare 1948 Signal Oil "cards" (actually a piece of film tucked onto a card) featuring Los Angeles and Hollywood P.C.L. players...


I recently picked up an amazing little group of these cards and a ton of the "associated stuff" such as advertising, etc. to go along with it...


Included in the lot was the viewer and the box, the nicest example of the box I have ever seen...


It came with the cards pictured above, a slide of the Hollywwod Stars, and two copies of a Babe Ruth/William Bendix slide from the movie "The Babe Ruth Story". I have owned copies of the Babe Ruth slide before and never put 2 and 2 together to associate that slide with the Vis-Ed "Big League Viewer" even though it says "Use in Big League Viewer" right on the back. Thus, we can now definitively attribute Vis-Ed for the Ruth slide (for those that may be interested there is one of them in the current Brockelman & Luckey auction, I don't own it but I figured I'd plug Leon's auction ). The Hollywood Stars slide is a new discovery that I had never seen before and am excited to share...


Equally as cool is the ad material that was also included, there is a orange instruction sheet for the viewer, and a mailer for the collector to send in to have their local Signal Gasoline" station reserve 8 other cards of LA and Hollywood ballplayers for them, apparently Stringer and Schuster were the "starter pack" that came with the viewer, and you then could get the other 8 from your dealer...


Also included was a fold out page from a magazine titled "Pacific Plastics" from August 1948, which features the section entitled "Progress With Plastics" and features a detailed write up of the viewer and the same two cards I showed above...


All-in-all a great little "Time Capsule" regarding this set from 1948, possibly a one of a kind grouping (especially the obscure magazine article), almost makes you wonder if this was a promo group for the Magazine itself or something. Anyways, I thought it was a fun and exciting little discovery and figure the board would enjoy seeing it.
-Rhett

[TheBig6]

Neat Stuff, Rhett
Thanks for Posting.
I had a few ansco viewers when I was a kid, none like that one though.

[Rob D.]

Thanks for posting about these, Rhett. That is a great find. I've always thought it odd that such similar products were produced for both PCL teams and the Cleveland Indians, which were on opposite ends of the country. The condition on all of your items is simply amazing; it's just so atypical.

Here is the Indians set for those unfamiliar who might care:








All of the cards have the same checklist on their backs:

[Leon]

Great stuff guys. Thanks for sharing. Ansco made some pretty cool stuff back in the day. I guess it was the kids "smartphone" of the day. Those Signal Oil slides are very scarce and I have never seen the Hollywood team before. Very cool.....Here is an Ansco card too.....

[ullmandds]

cool...I dig the "unique poses!"

[steve B]

Ansco just made the film. They were a smaller film company competing with Kodak. It's a bit sad that the card used the cheaper film that turns red. The Stars slide obviously used a better sort of film, maybe Anscochrome their version of Kodachrome.

Vis-Ed is still around, making educational flash cards.

The slide cards are cool stuff.

Steve B