Century Film

My friends Chris and Connie stumbled upon a box of very old sheet film.  They were going through some artifacts at a small town museum they were volunteering at, when they came across it.  The box was Kodak Cut Film, Super Speed, in the now obsolete 3-1/4" x 5-1/2" size.  This was considered "postcard" format and Kodak made cameras that accepted it.  The resulting negatives were contact printed onto heavy photographic paper of the same size and used as postcards.

Initially the seals of the box appeared to be intact, and it was obvious there was something inside.  The expiry date was February of 1926, almost 100 years ago.  Chris thought that I might be able to do something with the film, so he sent it to me for further investigation.  With a little research Chris was able to determine that the ISO speed of the film was 6, and that it was orthochromatic.  This meant that it was very slow film and required a lot of light for exposure.  It also meant that it was only sensitive to blue light, and that it could be handled under a darkroom safelight.

It was thought that if there was unexposed film in the box, I could trim it to 3-1/4" x 5" and load it into my modern 4" x 5" film holders.  It was hoped that I would then be able to use the film to take some photographs at the museum that it belonged to.  We would first have to check and see if the film that was thought to be in the box was already processed.  That would be obvious by inspection, first under safelight, and then if a negative image was present, in greater detail under room light.  If this was not the case, then one of the film sheets would have to be developed by inspection under safelight, to see if it had already been exposed.  If the film was unexposed we would attempt to use it.

But, it was all a big disappointment.  First I opened the box in total darkness, just in case any film that was in it was not actually orthochromatic.  It became apparent that the seals were not intact and the box had been previously opened.  When I checked inside I could feel a paper wrapped package inside the inner box.  I unwrapped that, and there was two cardboard protectors inside.  But the sheets that were between the protectors did not feel like film.  I pulled one out, and then wrapped up the rest.  I checked that one under room light and was dismayed to discover that it was just one of the tissue paper interleaves that would have been packaged between the original film sheets.  So, I opened the box up again, this time under safelight and was disappointed to discover that all that we had was the tissue paper interleaving... and no film.  It seems that this was an empty box that the original photographer had set aside after the using the 12 sheets of film that it originally contained.  

It was really cool to see these packaging materials from almost a century ago.  It would have been even more amazing if there had been at least a sheet or two of film left to play around with.  But it was not to be...!!

The box will be returned to Chris and Connie for delivery back to the museum, sadly without any images.