HISTORY:
I am not a 'film buff' and my "world" is 'the arts' and more specifically, music, artwork and hand crafted/decorated chinaware's.
An extremely unwell associate has asked me to find new owners for THEIR large collection of photographic and film items ... this is one of those items. I am often asked "THE QUESTION"
So how many films do you have, Russ?
My response is ... boxes and boxes of them, perhaps 500+
I have been honoured with the trust and care of these films, to the owner they are an important part of his life and I respect that. Each film is VERY SLOWLY (I have a lot of other things to do as well!) being evaluated, run through the projector (currently an ELMO ST1200D) and if needed, addition packing added to protect the film more.
ALL film stock is safely away in my storage units, nice n cool and out of harms way while I look (and smell!) each film ... NO ONE can just casually "browse" the collection. My associate wouldn't like that and neither do I.
Due to my previous working life in technical fields, I tend to be quite detailed in my item descriptions, please READ all the details to decide if this item may interest you.
Vinegar Syndrome: my nose came up NEGATIVE on these reels, however ...
From time to time I have noticed a "vinegar smell" coming off some films that I have been checking. I have been contacted by a learned ex film professional who has provided some pointers about this vinegar smell. Thank you kind Sir!
It seems that the presence of this odour indicates a chemical reaction is underway which will affect the base material of the film - over time. Most of these films are already around 50 years old, how much longer will they "survive" I wonder? No-one can provide a definitive answer to that one ... it's a bit like "the earth WILL be hit by a comet, one day, but no-one knows when"
This chemical reaction which is indicated by the Vinegar odour can (over time) affect both colour and black & white films equally, gradually becoming worse as time passes although I could not find a reliable guide as to how much time we are talking about - months? years? No-one seems confident enough to commit to a time frame.
If you "click" on the CAVEAT EMPTOR (Buyer Beware) in Red above, buried there is a link will take you to the esteemed National Film And Sound Archive Of Australia page which talks about this Vinegar Syndrome problem. These people at NFSA know their stuff ... the most disturbing aspect which jumped out at me is the possible effects of this chemical reaction on HUMAN health. Be careful when handling one of the "vinegar beasties", even just breathing the vapours is apparently not a good idea for sustained periods!
Having said all of this, I will ALWAYS indicate film stock that is producing this Vinegar odour in my description - although "aged", my nose still works (sort of!). I will still run the film through the projector for "testing" but have no way of knowing how advanced the chemical reaction may already be - unless the film stock crumbles in my hands! Hmmm ... not a good sign!
I still have a ton of films to investigate (the owner of these films was a BIG film buff in the 1960's ~ 1980's) and so far only a small percentage have proven to have the air of Vinegar about them ...
I have also been advised that even if NO smells are being produced, chemical reactions may be underway but as yet undetectable by the human nose (Hmmm ... is there such a thing as a "film sniffer dog" such as Border Patrol uses at the airport?
It really comes down to ... these films are OLD, probably they were never intended to be viewed up 50+ years after being released ... everything eventually fails
Please be realistic and keep all of this in mind.
Now, on with the description ...
This 3x reel motion picture is NOT in an original distributors packaging, but instead the reels are in a plain Brown plastic like canister/case. The information that follows is from my observations and towards the end of this lengthy description I describe my observations of the motion picture as I have partially played all three reels.
WALTONS - Super 8 Film
Commercial release for the Home Movie market
Hal Roach Studio
PACK UP YOUR TROUBLES (1931)
Laurel and Hardy comedy about two soldiers who, after WWII, try to find the orphaned daughter of their fallen comrade, Eddie. Their search leads to a series of mishaps, including disrupting a wedding, dodging the Welfare Association, and getting framed for bank robbery - all while trying to care for the child.
Labelling on the outer canister and reels is pretty basic (typed text on the canister so this was labelled a long time ago) and each reel has the film title written directly onto each reel (Black felt tip pen) and a small numbered "White dot".
Nice leader film friction fit reel clip on each reel so that the film doesn't easily spill from the reels.
3x 400' (7") Clear TUSCAN (Made by Australian Reel Co. Ltd) plastic reels
Black & White (well sort of, see my testing description below)
Sound (mono)
Single plain Brown 1.3mm thick "plastic like" canister or case (label inside indicates it came from a company called STAMFORD, located in Chatswood Sydney) which easily holds all three reels, it could actually hold 4 so I have added some bubblewrap to stop the reels moving around inside too much. The outer Brown plastic canister is two part with a square shape (rounded corners) and a stiple-like exterior finish. To this outer case is a Yellow nylon strap secured with double rivets and a double buckle arrangement - very secure once strapped up but a devil to undo!
The only identification on the inside of the canister/case is a metallic stick on label "STAMFORD, Chatswood" - I can find no references to this company online, other than a film production company in the same area but I feel this is unrelated.
COSMETIC CONDITION:
Very good
Film stock and 3x reels are undamaged, all three reels have the leaders fitted and "proper" film clips
NO damage to the canister/case nor to any of the reels. This means NO cracks, NO missing sections and NO parts are mis-shapen due to heat.
NO Vinegar smell coming off any of the reels (if anything, a little "musty" but not Vinegar!)
NO personal names or on the canister/case and the film reels
TESTING:
Test projector is the ELMO 1200 that I have on hand at the moment.
Each reel has been examined and test played individually ...
All reels examined and they look to be clean, sprocket holes (at least those that I could see) are undamaged .... so away we go
ALL REELS (3 of them)
Leader film fitted
Film clip fitted
I only ran each reel through the projector for the first five minutes or so of each reel to observe the picture and sound.
The contrast looked to be fine and no obvious signs of film scratching that I would see. If I was to make any contrary comment, Reel 2 was perhaps a bit "darker" than the other two reels but I am not viewing these in a "perfect cinema" environment and the ambient light around me kept changing in level all the time when I was viewing this (windstorm outside!) This was the beginning of Reel 2 which is full of wartime battle scenes, perhaps the scene lighting was subdued anyway - lots of banter between the characters in the trenches, bombs exploding nearby ... that sort of thing.
I did notice something about the appearance of the film on the screen though ... the "Black & White" is more like Sepia tones - a very slight shifting towards a Brown/Red colouring. Actually this makes the motion picture look the part - OLD. This slightly different colour was of a similar level on reels 1 & 2 but less so with reel 3, I felt. I have read that sometimes this effect was used to make films "look" older, could this be the case with this motion picture? I really have no idea about this.
Audio was fine, I think the high frequencies may be a bit on the "down side" but it is not muffled or anything terrible like that - I could easily understand the banter between these two clowns!
In my opinion, after this quite brief test viewing, I am happy that the film is as stated on the can label and reels and film stock appear to be in reasonable technical condition.
I am very fastidious and careful with these films (I am after-all doing this on behalf of another person) and I have decided to repack each reel with a little extra care ... I have placed each reel into a sealed clear plastic pack with two packets of Silica Gel (moisture absorbent) and then wrapped all three reels in bubblewrap which is also sealed. This package has then been returned to the Brown outer canister - it will not move around inside when being moved. The Silica Gel may or may not help with humidity related issues but at least I have given it a shot!
