NitrateVille.com

In this age of all things digital, and the death knell being rung for the projection of 35mm emulsion in theaters the following query:

Are there still collectors of classic motion pictures on 16mm film? Having held some of the aforementioned for well over 45 yrs, I now would like to find a good home for them and don't know exactly where to look.

Suggestions greatly appreciated.

There are still a fair number of collectors of 16mm film around, and even 8mm/Super 8 film, but the vast majority these days are video only, usually on a TV set. The market for selling 16mm prints is very small. I still have a modest collection of 16mm prints, perhaps a hundred to two hundred, but nowadays tend to watch only a couple each year on film. I haven't bought a film print for at least 5 years or more. A flood damaged and destroyed much of my 8mm, 16mm, and 35mm film collection about 15 years ago, hastening my switch to DVD and video projection (which happend about a decade ago) and then Blu-ray (almost 5 years ago). Currently about 80-90% of what I watch are Blu-rays on an HD projector, periodically DVDs, but I still long for the feel and sound of a physical film print running through the projector and that more organic film look on the screen. I do get a good classic film on film fix a few times a year at the various classic film conventions.

ebay is your friend on this one. There is still a big group of people who collect 16mm films. As long as you can
give good descriptions and actual photographs of the films you will get top dollar for condition.

Pookybear

pookybear wrote:ebay is your friend on this one. There is still a big group of people who collect 16mm films. As long as you can
give good descriptions and actual photographs of the films you will get top dollar for condition.

Pookybear

Actually, if you have a price in mind, you could offer them also on http://16mmfilmtalk.com" target="_blank, while or even before you list them on ebay.

Does your collection include any kinescopes (AKA telerecordings) by any chance?

We have a group of 16mm film collectors in the Dallas area, and we get together once a month for movie nights. I usually buy my prints off of eBay or http://www.16mmfilmtalk.com" target="_blank. eBay is a real crap-shoot because many sellers don't know how to inspect their films and they don't know what a splice or vinegar syndrome is. What kind of prints do you have? Shorts, features, TV shows, Blackhawk films?

Here's my answer to the original question posted:

Breaks my heart seeing that picture. One film should never be stacked more than 10 reels high. Two they should
be flat not vertical. Three buying enough shelving for the collection is a must, the floor is no place to store film.
Four archival cans would be nice. With all the money one has in films you would think it would also be natural to
protect that investment as best as one could.

Pookybear

Believe me, I'm not thrilled with the stacks. I have to put in a third row of shelving. No cans, though. Let 'em breathe.

My collection is a fraction of the size of Ray's, and it fits in a closet. I store my features horizontally, but I don't see anything wrong with storing shorts that way. Although archival cans are expensive, they do keep the dust off of films while allowing them to breathe.

Ray Faiola wrote:Here's my answer to the original question posted:

Holy magumbo.

The problem with storing film in the vertical position is that it forms two pressure points in the
stack of film. One right on top of the core or center of the reel. The second is at whatever point
that is at the bottom of the reel. This lower one is worst than the one in the center as it covers a
larger area. This is also the one that can aggravate saggy bag syndrome in some reels. Also the
stack of film does not breath equally over the reel as some film ends up have more weigh on it
than others this may lead to some sections becoming warped or worst start up vinegar syndrome.
That is why film should always stored in the flat (horizontal) position.

Pookybear

Vertical's fine as long as you occasionally run the film. It's not good if you're going to leave the film untouched for 20 years or so.

Oh yes,

I am sure everyone is going threw their collections and running all the films or rewinding them every six month to a
year just like clockwork. Ergo, store them flat to avoid problems.

Pookybear

At the Library of Congress we store all of film vertically....... okay, not really. I think archival cans are great but understand the expense is prohibitive for many. If not vented cans and/or cold storage then open reels would be my vote. There is a cure for dust, there isn't one for vinegar syndrome. The overwhelming majority of VS prints that I have received acquiring collections for two different archives over the years has been prints inside tightly sealed old metal cans (or worse inside plastic bags).

Impressive looking collection Ray. Looking at all those reels of film, I could only wonder how much space they would take as XviD data files (I don't do x264) on a 2TB external hard drive. Digitizing all that film in real time will be a bear.

No it won't since I have no intention of digitizing it.

I did not say you would digitize it. And we have no way currently of reading the future. 30 years ago, the Catskills was a beehive of summer activity, with hotels in the Borscht Belt such as the Tamarack Lodge, Grossingers, the Concord, the Nevele and the Stevensville Hotel in Swan Lake. Comedian Freddie Roman said that he would often perform at three different hotels on one night, with a driver waiting for him to finish one performance so Roman could rush to his next stand-up act venue. Within the space of a few years in the early 1990s, the Borscht Belt really hit the skids and now most of the hotels there have now been recycled or shuttered, if not demolished.

As I said, a very impressive 16MM collection.

"I did not say you would digitize it. And we have no way currently of reading the future. 30 years ago, the Catskills was a beehive of summer activity, with hotels in the Borscht Belt such as the Tamarack Lodge, Grossingers, the Concord, the Nevele and the Stevensville Hotel in Swan Lake. Comedian Freddie Roman said that he would often perform at three different hotels on one night, with a driver waiting for him to finish one performance so Roman could rush to his next stand-up act venue. Within the space of a few years in the early 1990s, the Borscht Belt really hit the skids and now most of the hotels there have now been recycled or shuttered...................................."

..............that may be true, but some of the greatest comedians and comedy writers came from the Borscht
Belt and have had a tremendous influence on movies and television. Woody Allen, Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Jerry
Lewis, Neil Simon, Rodney Dangerfield......I could go on and on.

My mother used to go to the Tamarack Lodge in Greenfield Park, up above Ellenville. The latest news on the Tamarack is here: http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.d ... /302120329" target="_blank

Workers at this resort hotel lived on the premises and when it shut down as a hotel around 1991, these workers lost not only their jobs but their homes. The Indian tribe that took over the Tamarack Lodge property a few years back with the intention of opening a casino on the site ran into money problems, including back taxes. As I recall, a Federal income tax problem already played a role in the demise of the original Tamarack Lodge.

Unlike the back lots of the major Hollywood studios, most of which are now the sites of homes and office buildings, the Borscht Belt hotels are mostly shut. No new generations of comedians and performers got their start in the Catskills for 20 years. In Atlantic City, new owners just bought the Trump Plaza casino for $20 million, a firesale price. Donald Trump was supposedly behind the the New York State legislature's persistent refusal to enable changes in State law to allow the construction of casinos in New York, copying New Jersey. The new Resort World Casino in Queens, NY now has the largest casino handle of any casino in the United States. In a casino that has only gambling machines, no table games. Imagine the positive economic effect two or three casinos would have had if New York State had allowed the construction of casinos (with a waiver from the Feds) in the Catskills 30 years ago.

There is a short TCM sometimes airs, "The Case Against the 20% Federal Admissions Tax on Motion Picture Theatres." That tax stayed in effect as movie theater owners competed with TV stations for viewers, with the TV station license owners getting their license for free and having to pay no tax to air movies. Like the 16MM movies that Ray has in his collection. Pretty unfair for the small movie theater owners back then, huh?

I know, it is an unfair world.

The Tamarack suffered a dreadful - intentional - fire last year and spread to not far from our place. We're all looking forward to the property returning to the tax rolls!!

As for the Nevele, our Sons of the Desert Delegate-at-Large used to show movies at the Nevele back in the 60's. We're all crossing our fingers that NY will pass the gambling bill as there is a purchaser for the Nevele who will reopen it as a casino. It will be big, big business for the entire region.

To connect all this up to Nitrateville, when my late mother started going to the Raleigh Hotel during the summer after the Tamarack Lodge closed, one of the people sitting at her table during meals said she was from Brooklyn and said she was Steven Spielberg's aunt. Flash back over 60 years to Richardwagnerstr. in Berlin, where my mother's father had an apartment house. One of his tenants was Fritz Lang's aunt, who lived there with her nurse. My mother said her father complained that Lang's aunt asked for all sorts of improvements to her apartment, then moved out. Memories of the past.

CBS Sunday Morning has
a story about The Borscht Belt.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50141227n" target="_blank

Ok one mo time..............

Dracula
The Mummy
The Bride Of Frankenstein
Hold That Ghost

Full features on Goldberg Reels, housed in fibre cases.

$1k plus ship.

You'll definitely find at least one buyer at:

http://www.16mmfilmtalk.com/index.php" target="_blank

momsne wrote:30 years ago, the Catskills was a beehive of summer activity, with hotels in the Borscht Belt such as the Tamarack Lodge, Grossingers, the Concord, the Nevele and the Stevensville Hotel in Swan Lake.

In 2010 I purchased a photo album which had some photos from Grossinger's, check 'em out!:

http://www.elbrendel.com/2010/05/sallys ... ngers.html" target="_blank

Terrific! And how I wish I were around to go to Olsen and Johnson's Chicken Farm Restaurant in Carmel, NY, on Route 55! I have a menu. I used to have an ashtray that had "Stolen from Olsen & Johnson's" printed on the bottom. But my wife put it in the dishwasher and....that beautiful three-color printing vanished like Hugh Herbert's guinea pig!!

There is an awesome publication out of Iowa called Classic Images. They have a classified section for people buying and selling 16mm films, among other things. They also have regular advertisers who sell 16mm with as much as two and three page ads listing titles and conditions of prints. This newsprint-format magazine also features interesting stories from old Hollywood and is available on some newsstands or by subscription. I can't remember their address but if you go to Classic Images.com, you can get contact info.