http://www.newsobserver.com/business/story/1429615.html COLUMBUS, Ohio -- View-Master's iconic reels of tourist attractions, first sold to promote 3-D photography, are ending their 70-year run after years of diminishing sales. Collectors like Mary Ann Sell of Maineville, Ohio, are dismayed. "The whole summer I was 5 years old, before I went to school, I traveled the world via View-Master. It was great, and now kids won't have the opportunity to do that," said Sell, 57, who owns upward of 25,000 scenic reels. Scenic discs are no longer a good fit for the Fisher-Price division of toy maker Mattel, a spokeswoman said, and the company stopped making them in December. Fisher-Price will keep making better-selling reels of Shrek, Dora the Explorer and other animated characters, a spokeswoman said. Peering at images shot from the top of the CN Tower in Toronto or the rim of the Grand Canyon could induce vertigo, they were so vivid. Elvis Presley's "jungle room" at Graceland is on a reel, and Mary Tyler Moore used the toy to check out vacation spots on her eponymous TV show. Toy industry analyst Sean McGowan with Needham & Co. said View-Master has been in decline since its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s. "That's not what the kids are looking for in the back seat of the car," he said. "They're looking for a DVD that plays on the back of Daddy's seat." Judging by View-Master's limited shelf space in stores, McGowan estimated it brings in less than $10 million a year, compared with overall revenue of $5.92 billion for Mattel in 2008. Finley said the shops at Yellowstone National Park typically sell 8,000 View-Master sets each year for up to about $13 each. McGowan found the scenic discs' cancellation sad but not surprising. "When I was a kid, everybody I knew had a View-Master, so you could sell [the reels] everywhere," said McGowan, 48. "Hardly anybody has it anymore." - - - - - - - - - - I loved looking at View Masters as a kid, but my daughter wasn't as fascinated by it with all the other toys she had like Gameboys, computers, etc. Even now I'll catch myself looking at View Masters at Target sometimes.
