Collecting Vintage Slides
Vintage Kodachrome slides
A fascinating ‘Snapshot’ of a different era
I’ve always loved slides for their sentimental value (my dad had tons of them made with is medium format Hasselblad) and for their beautiful, saturated color.
It’s recently that I’ve begun collecting them though. I happened upon a few interesting ones on eBay and got hooked.
I’ve found that it’s often better to buy individual slides vs slides in bulk.
Why?
Sellers will post batches and note that the slides have not been gone through or sorted - I believe this is said to let you now you could get a ‘winner’ - but I’m pretty sure you’re going to get a lot of non-winner boring type slides as well. Still, the thrill of the hunt, right?
The single slides I’ve purchased from various sites and flea markets have ranged in price from $1 - 16.00.
I have to admit, my original purpose for the slides was to make them into greeting cards and print to sell if I found some really great ones. But the more research I did on copyright dissuaded me and now I only print them out for myself. Which is fine, I still love collecting them for their historical value - clues to details about a particular era: clothes, color, cars etc.
A rather artistic shot inside a vintage bus with a single individual - I love the color palette which definitely matches the era.
If you're wondering what I mean by copyright issues, I’m talking about the fact that when you buy a slide - even though it’s the original, or negative, the copyright still remains with the person who took the photo.
Yes, it’s unlikely that the photographer would ever see a card I made with that long ago picture features (I collect from the 1940-1970s) but as an artist myself, I don’t want to be an infringer.
I love this slide, it’s from the 1940s and show London’s famous Claridge’s Hotel with flags in front.
There is a site I found online that sells prints from vintage slides, in the FAQs they state that the reason they are able to do this without infringing is based on the ‘orphaned’ works law and Fair Use. I did my own digging on this and I just don’t think it really covers what they are doing - but that’s just my opinion. If you want to read more about the copyright issue, I’ve added a paragraph at the bottom of the post about it.
How do you view the slides?
I view the slides with a small device made by Kodak called Slide n Scan Digital Film Scanner.
It does not take medium format, which is a disappointment but I didn’t realize that when I bought it, so I’ll get one that does since our family has so many medium formats.
However, it does scan the 2”x2” slides nicely with a button to upload to your computer once you’re finished scanning.
A note about this, there are different types of slides within 2”x2” (50mm) case depending on the kind of camera used and quality. There are 110 slides that have a small picture and were mostly taken with pocket cameras dating to the 1970s.
There are 110 slides that are larger and square and then there are the 135 slides which are known for capturing detail and color and were used by professional and amateur photographers who cared about quality.
All the slides I have are either medium format or 135.
The color in the slides is saturated and vibrant.
There are a number of ways to collect slides - you can collect by era, by format, by subject and so on.
I don’t have a specific subject matter I collect but in the realm of slides, a lot of them are vacations images, as you can imagine - remember when people used to have parties and show their holiday slides? No? Well, actually I don’t either, I was a bit too young. However, it was a thing at one time.
At any rate, I love vacation slides because they’re often taken at recognizable spots. Like this the one above with the artist painting Montmartre in Paris and the one below at Mount Rushmore.
Little details make a good photograph or slide. For example, the artist slide would not be of interest to me if she wasn’t wearing that whimsical straw hat.
It’s a bit hard to see on my web resolution image, but that’s Mount Rushmore in the background - and I love that the image is taken from inside a car.
Vintage Mount Rushmore - lots of images include cars, helping to date the slide.
Slides have been around for a long time but the color slides that most of us are familiar with are from Kodak, starting in the 1930s.
The red bordered slides shown in the first image in this post are earlier slides, dating from 1940-50s. There are sites that can help you to narrow it down further and it’s worth looking up if you decide to really get into collecting.
Sometimes a single pop of color can make the whole slide, as is the case with the WOLER image, otherwise the image is fairly homogenous in tone.
Also above, two interesting people. It's all about her though - the hat, pearls, purse and mole (in the actual print, the mole is very apparent on her face).
Slide collecting has become a fun addition to my photography interest and I always keep my eyes peeled for them at flea markets now.
Places to find vintage slides
Flea Markets
Ebay (easiest to find)
Etsy
Your family or extended family’s attic or basement (cheapest to find!)
Thrift stores
About Copyright
Early I wrote that I didn’t believe vintage slides are able to used for commercial gain, even though there is a vague sort of beginning of a law having to do with orphaned pieces - art, or anything else that would normally be copyrighted but there is no way to find the originator, at least not by reasonable means.
Basically, the orphan law is still in progress and nothing concrete has been passed, but the idea is that there are millions of works that cannot be attributed to the original creator because that person would be impossible to find (hence the word ‘orphan’) and that by restricting their use, the world in general is being robbed of some great, historical images, words etc.
Fair Use is different, it applies to using an image (for example) to educate or critique - it’s what allows blogs to post an image of a movie still, a book, an article and why I feel free to post an image of a slide and review it. Fair use aids the viewer to understand an article. But it cannot be used for commercial purposes.