Revere Stereo 33

The Revere company was established in Chicago in the early 1920s as an auto parts machine shop. Tinming couldn’t have been worse, as it was straight into the great depression. I’m not sure how they have survived that period, but in the early 1940s, they introduced the Revere 84 and Revere 88, 8mm cine cameras, in direct competition with market leader Bell and Howell. At about that time, the company had taken over Wollensak, one of the US’s photography pioneers. Wollensak had begun the century before, specializing in lenses and shutters. Revere continued selling its cameras under both names, where the Wollensak brand was considered a premium product. In 1960, the company was sold to 3M, which continued the camera line but with little success, until it dropped it altogether. There is precious little information about both companies, which is odd given that the American industry is well-documented.

Both Revere and Wollensak focused mainly on cine cameras; other than cine, Revere offered five #126-format cameras under Automatic and two #127 models under the Eye-matic name, and Wollensak only the Stereo Model 10 Camera, the same cameras as the Revere 33. In the 3M incarnation, they offered c#126 format cameras under the same name used by Revere.

I was curious to see how many cine camera models were offered at about that period, so see the table below. It includes 69 manufacturers, out of over 200 overall manufacturers of cine cameras.

The Revere Stereo 33 came to market in 1953, relatively early into the post-war stereo photography era.  The first of the American stereo lot was the Haneel Sales Tri-Vision Camera of 1946, followed by the Realist in 1947, which brought this mode to the mainstream. The Videon followed in 1950 and the View-Master Personal Stereo in 1952. The Revere 33 and Wollensak 10 came in 1953, followed by models from Bell and Howell, Sears, Graflex, and Kodak, until the market lost interest and stereo photography became the domain of collectors.

For a US-designed camera, this camera is well-designed and does not look like a military issue. It is heavy, as most US cameras are, weighing 760 gr / 1.6 lb. It is not a surprise, as it is all steel. The body and skin on my unit are well preserved, which is uncommon for that era in that country. The camera uses the Realist size convention, as most stereo cameras made at the time did. More at the Realist page. On the mechanical side, the engineers borrowed from the Realist as well, with the film holding assembly moving back and forth, a prominent style. I guess it was easier this way, rather than having both lenses turn in unison and avoiding the chance that one would drop focus.

A refreshing point is that this camera is straightforward to use. No mystery settings that require reading the manual.

• The top of the camera, from right, are:
  • The winder knob, skirted by a manual reset frame counter. The trigger is by the winder. The winder also cocks the shutter, not to be taken for granted at that time.
  • To its left is the serrated focusing dial, easy to move with the right-hand thumb. Turning the dial moves the film assembly back and forth. Distances are marked in feet in red, and flash setting recommendations are in the inner ring in black. Depth of field is printed on the body, around this dial.
  • The cold accessory shoe and rewind knom are on the left.
• At the top back are two viewers, both of which are era characteristically tiny. The left is the rangefinder window, coupled with the distance dial. The middle is the composing viewer, with a parralax correction lever, red marked for less than 10’, black for over. It is a blessing to have the viewer there, after toying with the Realist, who positioned the viewer at the bottom.
• The fully removable back unlocks via a slider on the right side, well marked ‘lock’ and ‘open’.
• Inside is a Realist-style lens bays, two masks of 23x24mm, positioned at 62mm centers, same as the average human pupil distance. The images skip two for each pair, see sketch below. Laiding instructions are printed in the middle; in essence, load the film and fire three blanks. A back-mounted long pressure plate.
• Common to that era was an exposure table printed on the camera or case. Here ot is presented on the camera’s bottom.
• The front has the three viewer windows. The larger, middle one is the composition viewer, and the flankers are rangefinder windows.
• The shutter speeds are set by a ring around the left lens, and the aperture via a ring around the right lens. Easy to grasp and easy to read. The Kodak Stereo later copied this arrangement.
• At the bottom is an extra shutter cocking lever used to fire an additional image on the same frame. It seems to be very popular at the time, as many cameras feature a bypass like this.

For the collector, it is a post-war, impressive and well-made American camera. Not a usable model, but fit to grace the shelf. They are cheaply available so that they will make a good shelf queen.

Post-war cine film camera manufacturers

Revere Stereo 33 specifications

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