35mm BIRTH OF A NATION with Vitaphone disks on eBay

Post by **silentfilm** » Fri May 14, 2010 7:24 am

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... SS:US:1123

According to the seller, they are the original 1930 reels from producer Roy Aitken's estate. Obviously these are from the early 1930s sound re-issue.

Mitchell Dvoskin · Post by **Mitchell Dvoskin** » Fri May 14, 2010 8:56 am

And if these are indeed original reels, they would be on nitrate film.

Jay Salsberg · Post by **Jay Salsberg** » Fri May 14, 2010 10:55 am

That film stock looks pretty good for 80 year-old nitrate.

Ray Faiola · Post by **Ray Faiola** » Fri May 14, 2010 11:15 am

The original 1930 reissue prints were on "Peach Blow" stock. Is the eBay print?

Tommy Stathes · Post by **Tommy Stathes** » Fri May 14, 2010 6:46 pm

Jay Salsberg wrote:That film stock looks pretty good for 80 year-old nitrate.

I have a couple from 1920-1921. Just fine! A few of my later nitrates were rotting, though...straight to LoC.

pookybear · Post by **pookybear** » Mon May 17, 2010 5:28 pm

Tom Stathes wrote:
Jay Salsberg wrote:That film stock looks pretty good for 80 year-old nitrate.
I have a couple from 1920-1921. Just fine! A few of my later nitrates were rotting, though...straight to LoC.

Tom,

I did not know you had nitrate stock as well over there.
I hope my friend that you keep your prints seperate from each others off
gassing fumes. You know all the nitrate stock in one room and the di-
acetate in another and so forth.

Pookybear

Post by **silentfilm** » Sun May 23, 2010 8:05 pm

On the 16mmfilmtalk.com message site, Philip Borgnes alerted someone at the Library of Congress about this print on eBay. Here is their response:

"Thanks for thinking of us! This print has been around the block, so to speak! I think we were first offered it through the Vitaphone Project a year or so ago. The issue for us is that we have not only the picture and track negatives for the sound reissue, as well as some print material, we also have the original negative for the 1915 version and several long original era prints. We have LOTS and LOTS of nitrate on BOAN, but always run up against a wall when preservation is attempted as someone always complains about federal money being used to preserve "that film."

http://www.16mmfilmtalk.com/viewtopic.php?t=17130