Collecting stills.

[Bob Birchard]

1) There's some bad things that can go wrong with original stills, most notably degradation of the image due to improper fixing. It usually shows as brown patches, and sometimes other colors like blue. Watch out for those, the image is deteriorating. They can be saved, but I'd only bother on rarities. Sepia toning is a different process from tinting, so there should be no darkening of the base. If someone calls their image a sepia toned original, it should still be on a white background.

In my experience, and I've been collecting stills since I was 11 years old--so for some fifty years--if stills are going to fade due to improper fixing or washing they will do so within the first year. I have stills in my collection that I've had for fifty years that showed signs of fading when I acquired them and look no different all these years later.

[Bob Birchard]

Has anyone come across stills with linen backing? I have a few stills from KEYSTONE HOTEL with linen backing. Movie posters are commonly linen backed, but is it unusual for stills?

These are Key Book stills. Sometime you will find them with the hinged left or top edge intact and punch holes so they could be secured in the Key Book. Typically there would be a New York Key Book and a Studio Key Book and then each film exchange might also receive a Key Book. Key Books contained all of the approved stills for a film.

[Bob Birchard]

quick question from a newbie to still collection: what is the best way to store them? i've been using one-sheet plastic sleeves (like the Avery brand available at an office supply store) housed in a three-ring binder. it's economically sound, but is that the best way to preserve them?

Don't use plastic sleeves for stills. If the least bit of moisture gets to them the emulsion side will stick to the plastic and may cause damage when being removed. The emulsion side may also "type" with he plastic, potentially altering the finish on the still.

File folders in a file cabinet is best--acid-free folders if available.

To prevent curling some institutions store stills emulsion to emulsion--but this practice (while minimizing curling) is the best way to insure that you will lose every image if moisture gets to them. It also puts potentially tainted emulsions in contact with each other. Avoid this practice if you can.

[Bob Birchard]

One issue has come up a couple of times in stills I've seen for sale - they aren't the standard 8x10 size but slightly smaller, which leads me to believe the borders have been trimmed away. Would that be considered enough to downgrade the still?

This is a matter of experience in judging what you are looking at.

Many 1910-1915 stills are 5"x7" (although pre-1910 stills (rare as they are) tend to be 8"x10"s.

Certain studios--Universal, Triangle, L-Ko and others--used a 6"x9" format in the 1910s

Hal Roach in the 1920s used an odd format that was slightly less than 8"x10"

It was common for fan magazines to trim photos to crop marks to avoid confusion in production. I have a file of Bull and Hurrell portraits of Joan Crawford that were all trimmed by one of the fan mags. It adds a touch of historic interest, while whittling down the value from a figure in the thousands to a figure in the tens.

The backs of still can be interesting. There are many Mary Pickford portraits out there with her pencilled "O.K. MP" or "N.G. MP" on the back. Photos used by newspapers often have a date stamp on the back that can peg the year a photo was taken and/or used.

[Gloria Rampage]

Bob Birchard
These are Key Book stills. Sometime you will find them with the hinged left or top edge intact and punch holes so they could be secured in the Key Book. Typically there would be a New York Key Book and a Studio Key Book and then each film exchange might also receive a Key Book. Key Books contained all of the approved stills for a film.

Yes, they were hinged on the left side of the stills. Thanks for the information.

[mndean]

1) There's some bad things that can go wrong with original stills, most notably degradation of the image due to improper fixing. It usually shows as brown patches, and sometimes other colors like blue. Watch out for those, the image is deteriorating. They can be saved, but I'd only bother on rarities. Sepia toning is a different process from tinting, so there should be no darkening of the base. If someone calls their image a sepia toned original, it should still be on a white background.

In my experience, and I've been collecting stills since I was 11 years old--so for some fifty years--if stills are going to fade due to improper fixing or washing they will do so within the first year. I have stills in my collection that I've had for fifty years that showed signs of fading when I acquired them and look no different all these years later.

You and I differ, then. I've seen deterioration happen long after a year. Sometimes it was ten years after. Gross problems like underfixing come sooner, I agree, but poor washing is one I've seen damage images years later. I haven't collected old photographs for long (a month!), but I have taken photographs for enough years to have seen it happen in my own on photos taken when I was early in my teens. I've also seen it happen in framed photos under glass at a building I worked at, where a group of photos gradually deteriorated, some looking almost solarized, a process that took about four years.

[mndean]

One issue has come up a couple of times in stills I've seen for sale - they aren't the standard 8x10 size but slightly smaller, which leads me to believe the borders have been trimmed away. Would that be considered enough to downgrade the still?

This is a matter of experience in judging what you are looking at.

Many 1910-1915 stills are 5"x7" (although pre-1910 stills (rare as they are) tend to be 8"x10"s.

Certain studios--Universal, Triangle, L-Ko and others--used a 6"x9" format in the 1910s

Hal Roach in the 1920s used an odd format that was slightly less than 8"x10"

It was common for fan magazines to trim photos to crop marks to avoid confusion in production. I have a file of Bull and Hurrell portraits of Joan Crawford that were all trimmed by one of the fan mags. It adds a touch of historic interest, while whittling down the value from a figure in the thousands to a figure in the tens.

The backs of still can be interesting. There are many Mary Pickford portraits out there with her pencilled "O.K. MP" or "N.G. MP" on the back. Photos used by newspapers often have a date stamp on the back that can peg the year a photo was taken and/or used.

Thanks! The photo I mentioned has some evidence of being trimmed that I missed. Also, its size was none you mentioned (it was from the '20s but wasn't a Roach studio photo), and date stamped.

6"x9" is an odd size, almost whole plate but too narrow one way, too wide the other.

[Bob Birchard]

1) There's some bad things that can go wrong with original stills, most notably degradation of the image due to improper fixing. It usually shows as brown patches, and sometimes other colors like blue. Watch out for those, the image is deteriorating. They can be saved, but I'd only bother on rarities. Sepia toning is a different process from tinting, so there should be no darkening of the base. If someone calls their image a sepia toned original, it should still be on a white background.

In my experience, and I've been collecting stills since I was 11 years old--so for some fifty years--if stills are going to fade due to improper fixing or washing they will do so within the first year. I have stills in my collection that I've had for fifty years that showed signs of fading when I acquired them and look no different all these years later.

You and I differ, then. I've seen deterioration happen long after a year. Sometimes it was ten years after. Gross problems like underfixing come sooner, I agree, but poor washing is one I've seen damage images years later. I haven't collected old photographs for long (a month!), but I have taken photographs for enough years to have seen it happen in my own on photos taken when I was early in my teens. I've also seen it happen in framed photos under glass at a building I worked at, where a group of photos gradually deteriorated, some looking almost solarized, a process that took about four years.

Exposing photos to light, especially Sunlight, over long periods of time can lead to gradual deterioration as can having photo emulsions in contact with glass--which can cause typing and the sorts of solarization effects you describe. I was speaking of storage in folders and in file cabinets, where I have seen little or no evidence of ongoing fading.

[missdupont]

Did you not read my August post stating that linen backed stills were keybook stills? You had the information in August, Gloria.

[mndean]

In my experience, and I've been collecting stills since I was 11 years old--so for some fifty years--if stills are going to fade due to improper fixing or washing they will do so within the first year. I have stills in my collection that I've had for fifty years that showed signs of fading when I acquired them and look no different all these years later.

You and I differ, then. I've seen deterioration happen long after a year. Sometimes it was ten years after. Gross problems like underfixing come sooner, I agree, but poor washing is one I've seen damage images years later. I haven't collected old photographs for long (a month!), but I have taken photographs for enough years to have seen it happen in my own on photos taken when I was early in my teens. I've also seen it happen in framed photos under glass at a building I worked at, where a group of photos gradually deteriorated, some looking almost solarized, a process that took about four years.

Exposing photos to light, especially Sunlight, over long periods of time can lead to gradual deterioration as can having photo emulsions in contact with glass--which can cause typing and the sorts of solarization effects you describe. I was speaking of storage in folders and in file cabinets, where I have seen little or no evidence of ongoing fading.

Yes, those displayed photos were in light most all the time, and what you say about them makes perfect sense. I used to walk past them every now and then to check how far gone they were. It's easy not to display originals now that anyone can do good scans and printing of 8x10s and keep the data file for reprinting. If a printed scan fades, nothing of value is really lost except the time/expense of printing. It's something I got in the habit of doing the last five years.

My old black & white prints were in a drawer inside a photo envelope, and some showed brown spots in the mid-1980s which weren't there five years before (reaction with the material they were stored in is a possibility, but the envelope hadn't browned). The culprits were from a time I took an introduction photography class in junior high and I expect I did a rush job on doing the enlargements in class and didn't pay much attention to washing them. That E-4 High Speed Ektachrome slides I processed concurrently at home are still good even today may be luck or I was more meticulous at home.