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I am amazed how many people are selling packaged films on Ebay, who claim they have never viewed them . Out of all the color films being sold on Ebay ....what would you guess would be the percentage with severe color fade ( only milky, fleshy red tones visible) ?
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If they are still cellophane-sealed...well, one never can know if the colors are still.vibrant, in a Castle print, say...unless opened and run...Alot of folks don't exactly know what they have and figure same...Shorty -
If the seller hasn't screened the film in question, you'd need to take into account the distributor and approximate year of release to get some sort of idea. It's probably best to assume the film is faded and bid accordingly. Better to be pleasantly surprised than severely disappointed.Comment
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If they are early B&W on B&W stock you don't have to worry about the colour, just the smell when you unwrap them.Comment
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As a rule of thumb: You’ll have to assume that all color prints made in the 1970s* are now crap because they are on Kodak or 3M material. It doesn’t matter whether they have been opened or screened. When you are lucky, then the print is on Agfa, Fuji, Orwo or Svema or on older or newer Kodak. But you will not know this when the box has never been opened before. (You cannot even be sure that the „printed on xyz“ on the box is correct. I’ve got at least one print that is on Agfa despite the box saying Kodak.)
* The experts here can probably give you all details about the Kodak material that turns reddish by itself. This might help you to calculate your chances. All the 3M (aka Ferrania) print stocks that I encountered so far either turned greenish or brownish - sometimes not as bad as Kodak’s reddishness. This might be bad luck, but I haven’t heard anything else from other collectors yet.Comment
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Columbia titles then to be faded or pink. There are exceptions I have seen unfaded Close Encounters and Odessa Files.
MGM were good upto 20 years ago. Hit and miss Some were pinkish when they were new Westworld and Guns for San Sebastián as exam0les.
Universal 8 again they were printed in different locations. I have yet to open a sealed one without pink tendencies . Sting and Dracula 400. Yet have 2x 400 of both titles with good colour
20th Century Fox it depends on titles. Also, key might be white sticker color sound or colour sound. 1st one is US print and are faded. Colour Sound might indicate UK print and can have good colour.
Walton despite their sins to Tom & Jerry and Laurel & Hardy their print must have been on good low fade stock as most retain original colour. Glad to say I only have Tom & Jerrys and Pink Panthers the latter character having a built in advantage.
Marketing the 400s seem to retain their colour better than 3x400 or features. I think the longer editions originated from US. Also, depends when they were printed Star Trek and The Hunter are usually good colour but I saw recently a pinkish copy of The Hunter.
Derann. Derek made an announcement around 1986/87 in Film for Collector magazine that Derann were only using LPP stock from that date onwards which means anything before that date is capable of being pink
I have a suspicion older stock has been used on shorts and trailers after that date. My reason for that is I have seen trailers only Derann released that have faded. I saw a faded pink copy of Predator trailer. Now, Predator feature and trailer releases were stunning prints.
The theatrical release for Predator was 1987 so the super 8 print must have been made after that date. It could be somebody else printed and released it as a title or was it a white box special ?
In conclusion, I recently bought a batch of new sealed digests from a guy who had found boxes of them in a garage lock up. A lot of titles you wouldn’t want but I bought Dirty Mary Crazy Larry, The Sand Pebbles King Solomon’s Mines and Coffy. All were perfect colour although they need a film cleaner application to help them run in projector. The Seven Ups colour had shifted a bit but still fairly good.
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