Pair of Richard Veroscope 45mm X 105 mm (approximately 1½ by 4 inches) stereoscopic glass lantern slides depicting early Zeppelin airship flights. The images show a cigar-shaped dirigible flying low over open ground with crowds of spectators gathered along the horizon watching the aircraft in flight. In one view the Zeppelin passes near a large hangar structure, while the other shows the airship approaching above the field with observers lined up beneath it.

Handwritten captions on the mounts read “Johs Zeppelin an Versuch… See zu Constanz,” referencing experimental Zeppelin flights at Lake Constance, Germany, where Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin conducted the earliest airship trials. The slides are further identified as relating to LZ3, one of the early operational Zeppelin airships.

Accompanying handwritten notes identify LZ3’s first flights on October 9 and 10, 1906, each covering approximately 60 miles, and note that the airship was later taken over by the German Army in 1909 as the first military Zeppelin before being destroyed in the spring of 1913. Additional notes reference earlier airship development including LZ2 and the experimental flights of 1905–1906.

Early stereoscopic images documenting the pioneering period of Zeppelin airship development are scarce and provide an important visual record of the earliest era of controlled dirigible flight.