S3D
S3D | |
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The S3 style marked the beginning of Sawyer's commitment to the 3-reel packet format as the backbone of their View-Master marketing and production program.
The central element of the S3 design was a large square window with rounded corners, representing an image as seen through a View-Master viewer. Two- or three-color line drawings, like those in previous packet styles, filled this "window" in the earliest S3 packets, which collectors designate "S3D." The use of drawn illustration in the S3 style was short-lived; full-color photographic images soon replaced line art on packet covers to produce what is known today as the standard S3 variant.
S3 | |
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| front | back |
Most packets of this era were issued in only one of the two S3 variants, though some very popular titles were published in both S3D and S3 versions because their higher-volume sales required a new production run before later packet styles were introduced.
S3 layout was uniform from packet to packet and consisted of the left-aligned picture window surrounded:
at the top by the packet title;
at the upper right by a solid-color circle displaying a general subject catgory;
at the right by a textual sampling of the packet contents;
at the lower right by a drawing of a View-Master viewer against a background of three reels (initially the Model "C" from S1 and S2 packet designs, but soon changed to a Model "E"); and
at the bottom by the slogan "21 three dimension View-Master pictures" incorporating the original art décoratif View-Master logo.
The back of the packet envelope was laid out for mailing, with "Hand Stamp" and "Do Not Bend" postal cautions and areas reserved for address, return address, and postage stamp. The S3 flap was considerably shorter than those on earlier envelopes, occupying approximately 25% of the packet's vertical dimension.
With S3 production Sawyer's abandoned earlier alphabetic packet designations; numbering was applied instead to the reels themselves. Typically, reels in a packet were assigned a shared number with -A, -B, or -C suffixes appended to differentiate them from one another. In the state tour titles, reel designations consisted of the state's alphabetic abbreviation with the suffixes -1, -2, or -3. New numbers notwithstanding, single reels with their original numbers were quite commonly issued in S3 packets. Reel numbers were printed at the top of the envelope flap in earlier S3 issues and below the address block in later issues.
A new alphanumeric packet/reel numbering system was instituted beginning with the subsequent S4 style. Toward the end of S3 packet production Sawyer's manually rubber-stamped the new packet numbers on the back of packet envelopes (as seen in both specimens above); conversely, reels with the newer alphanumeric designations are known to have been issued in S3 envelopes.