Original negatives- underrated? Show yours

[horzverti]

I love the fact that original negs are truly 1 of 1.

I think there is, or will be, a solid market for vintage original negs. We may see that they will become quite sought after and their prices will reflect their desirability. Although they can be fragile, prone to deterioration and can be tough to adequately display; they will still find buyers. Collectors buy many items just to stash away. Collectors don't display every photo or card they own. Negs can be acquired and then stored away just like everything else. I think that they are now collectibles in their own right and not just a means to produce photos.

I haven't heard any updates recently, but the collection of original Conlon negs (glass plates only) was slated to be sold off sometime this summer by the receivers of the Rogers' holdings. I am sure the sale has been pushed back considering I haven't heard any push leading up to the sale.

Here are a few of my original Conlons 4 x 5s on acetate safety film. He switched to acetate from glass in the 1930s. Note the company name on the envelope he stored one in.

[Forever Young]

Originally Posted by horzverti

I love the fact that original negs are truly 1 of 1.

I think there is, or will be, a solid market for vintage original negs. We may see that they will become quite sought after and their prices will reflect their desirability. Although they can be fragile, prone to deterioration and can be tough to adequately display; they will still find buyers. Collectors buy many items just to stash away. Collectors don't display every photo or card they own. Negs can be acquired and then stored away just like everything else. I think that they are now collectibles in their own right and not just a means to produce photos.

I haven't heard any updates recently, but the collection of original Conlon negs (glass plates only) was slated to be sold off sometime this summer by the receivers of the Rogers' holdings. I am sure the sale has been pushed back considering I haven't heard any push leading up to the sale.

Here are a few of my original Conlons 4 x 5s on acetate safety film. He switched to acetate from glass in the 1930s. Note the company name on the envelope he stored one in.

I can't see what they say.

[horzverti]

The white one is a The Evening Telegram mailing envelope cut in half. It seems Charlie had so many negs, he ran out of his supply of the tan, cardboard-ish storage envelopes. So he used his employer's envelopes. Cool connection between Conlon and his newspaper employer.
I don't have the negs readily available to re-photograph right now. I'll see if I can add a larger or more tightly cropped picture later.

[horzverti]

Found one

[Forever Young]

Originally Posted by horzverti

Found one

Very very cool curt! Any Ruth or gehrig?

[horzverti]

Never heard of those guys. I do have a sweet Fred Haney though.

[Forever Young]

Originally Posted by horzverti

Never heard of those guys. I do have a sweet Fred Haney though.

Haha.. Love it. I love how his hand writing is all over the sleeves. Thank you for Sharing! Also.. Word "on the street" is that heritage is auctioning them off in their August auction. ������ hopefully I will be able to afford 1 or several.

[Michael B]

I would have to agree that original negatives are underrated. I have been purchasing them for years. My archives includes about 25 glass plate negatives, about 150 4x5 acetates, a half dozen or so 2x2's, several hundred 35 mm. I also have several magic lantern slides and about 3,000 transparencies/slides from 1956 to 1996. All of mine are Olympic related. They go along with my 8-10,000 original images of all sizes. Here are a few slides and negatives.

1964 Olympic baseball team on their way to Tokyo. The team includes future major leaguers Al Closter, Dick Joyce, Chuck Dobson, Jim HIbbs, Ken Suarez, Shaun Fitzmaurice, Mike Epstein and Gary Sutherland

1956 Olympic boxing team at the trials - silver medalist and Boxing HOFer Jose Torres is 3rd from the right.

1984 Women's Olympic marathon - all of the U.S.women are in this image. Joan Benoit, the gold medalist is on the left in the white cap.

Steve Alford in high school - NCAA Champ and Olympic gold medal in basketball.

Horace Ashenfelter on right and other athlete in the Olympic Village Melbourne, Australia 1956. He won a gold medal in 1952

Bobby Joe Morrow in 1956. He won 3 gold medals at the Olympics. SI Sportsman of the Year in 1956 and also appeared on the cover of Life magazine.

Bill Russell in the Olympic Village in 1956. His face is in the shadows and I am asking one of my photoshop people to lighten the face.

[mybestbretts]

I don't know enough about how to prevent deterioration to know how to preserve negatives over the long haul. I have old negatives that have become brittle over time.
The only thing I don't like is so many are being bought and pictures reproduced and sold on ebay for little or nothing.

[thecatspajamas]

Originally Posted by mybestbretts

The only thing I don't like is so many are being bought and pictures reproduced and sold on ebay for little or nothing.

I think you will find that most of those selling for little or nothing are not actually purchasing negatives to reproduce, but rather grabbing images off the net to do so. It's easy to sell for next to nothing when you don't have any skin in the game.

I have actually had a couple of instances where I was selling some slides on eBay and another individual was selling prints of the images before my auction had even ended! In that particular case, a mention of copyright law and attorneys was enough to end his selling of those images. Normally I wouldn't care, as I don't sell reprints, so there's not that ongoing competition. In this case though, the buyer asked me to look into it.

[Chris-Counts]

A few years back, I bought a batch of Reds' negatives from the 1939-40 era off eBay. A couple weeks later, I noticed they were smoking (no joke!). Soon, they had melted into a puddle of goo. I was never very good at chemistry, but I figured some kind of chemical reaction was going on. At this point, I decided to give up collecting negatives, but I did get a couple nice prints made from them before they self-destructed.

[horzverti]

Originally Posted by Chris Counts

A few years back, I bought a batch of Reds' negatives from the 1939-40 era off eBay. A couple weeks later, I noticed they were smoking (no joke!). Soon, they had melted into a puddle of goo. I was never very good at chemistry, but I figured some kind of chemical reaction was going on. At this point, I decided to give up collecting negatives, but I did get a couple nice prints made from them before they self-destructed.

Chris, that is a terrible that your negs were destroyed. Sorry to read that. May I ask how you had stored the negatives? Were they in individual sleeves? If so, what material were the sleeves made of?

[Keith_Loving]

You need to be careful to avoid high heat. Don't store them in an attic where the temps can get really hot and partly melt and warp the negatives. I have a hard time believing they were smoking, but I am no expert on this topic. Just a skeptic. Hopefully you had prints made before the negatives were toasted.