As I wrote three years ago, when I returned to Indonesia after spending 4 years in New Caledonia, I opened my storage and discovered that many 8mm reels had been destroyed by the vinegar syndrome
This is a real consequence of living in this hot and humid country because films cannot survive in this type of climate, especially those struck on acetate film base.
Having discovered these facts, I moved the other good films to my cupboard and left them at room temperature, which is around 25 degrees Celsius at night and 31 degrees Celsius during the day, while the humidity is stable at 90%. (I can't afford to keep the air conditioner on for 24 hours and 366 days).
Last night I checked some suspect reels and discovered that the films shown below were no longer projectable and therefore had to be binned.
In this sad situation, I feel lucky that in Indonesia, a 7' reel can still be sold for $6 because nowadays since there are only few people selling 8mm items while vintage collectors are now increase, and they sometimes buy 8mm projectors and need reels. So I can recoup some of my losses
From now on, the cases are only good for display.
I don't know if they are useful to 8mm collectors here, but shipping is insanely expensive from here.
cheers,
winbert
ps: as you may be aware, most of them were housed in plastic cases.. so there is a strong relation between VS and the type of case.
This is a real consequence of living in this hot and humid country because films cannot survive in this type of climate, especially those struck on acetate film base.
Having discovered these facts, I moved the other good films to my cupboard and left them at room temperature, which is around 25 degrees Celsius at night and 31 degrees Celsius during the day, while the humidity is stable at 90%. (I can't afford to keep the air conditioner on for 24 hours and 366 days).
Last night I checked some suspect reels and discovered that the films shown below were no longer projectable and therefore had to be binned.
In this sad situation, I feel lucky that in Indonesia, a 7' reel can still be sold for $6 because nowadays since there are only few people selling 8mm items while vintage collectors are now increase, and they sometimes buy 8mm projectors and need reels. So I can recoup some of my losses
From now on, the cases are only good for display.
I don't know if they are useful to 8mm collectors here, but shipping is insanely expensive from here.
cheers,
winbert
ps: as you may be aware, most of them were housed in plastic cases.. so there is a strong relation between VS and the type of case.
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