Railroad slides. Original or not?? Question.

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So beings I know nothing about the slide making process, I'm guessing there is a negitive involved in making a slide. And if a slide is made from the negitive, it's an original. But if it's a copy from another slide, it's a duplicate. Is that correct?

OK, so if I do go the e-bay route and sell by the slide, there is no way I can say for sure if they are original or not. What if a guy could secure the negitives? Would that help?

A slide is a positive image with the color dyed into the emulsion during processing. Kodachromes look like a positive b&w image before the dye process. Unlike color print film (or black and white film) there is no negative. A slide is the entire product in a tiny package. This is why they where so popular as there was no negative or print to keep around.

To make a duplicate slide you basically take a picture of the original slide using slide film (ironically the image of the image is an original). This process results in a loss of quality from the original slide. A collector will spot a duplicate slide fairly easy though I have seen some extremely high quality duplicate slides that are really difficult to tell the difference even when the original is shown next to it.

If you sell them on Ebay and you do not know if they are a duplicate or not just say that in your listing its up to the buyer to make the call on whether they want to bid or not. Now it would be save to say that any slide with a Kodak/Qualux processing stamp and indicates its a Kodachrome is an original.

What makes a slide worth more than another is the subject, the composition, lighting and condition of the slide (damaged mounts, mold, dirt, scratches, etc will kill the value) plus the whim of the buyer. A good scan image also makes a difference when selling them. If you don't have a good slide scanner if maybe beneficial to buy one or know someone who will scan them for you (I've been know to do this for others). A medium quality scanner can cost between 200-500 dollars while a top of the line Nikon scanner can be well over 1500 dollars. Used ones on Ebay can be found at a good price if you are patient.
 
So I found my jeweler's loupe and have started to really study these slides. I have looked at a bunch of different slides that are marked as duplicates and then looked at ones that I know are originals. The difference is pretty easy to spot upon close inspection. Now that I know what I'm looking for it should be a little easier to list these things correctly. A local camera shop said to bring some slides in and they would check them and them have me tell them if they are originals or not.

An update on the count. We were just guessing that each folder held about 300 slides each. I have hand counted 10 folders so far, out of 64. The average so far has been about 425 sliders per folder. That does not count the three boxes of boxed slides.
 
So here is the latest update for all of you who have been following this thread. We have for the last two days been doing a hard count on the slide collection. So the latest total stands at a whopping 23,884 slides. We are getting to the end and I'm real sure we are going to make 27,000 before we are done! 27,000 slides, who has that many slides????:eek:
 
So here it is. This is the total railroad slides counted in the collection. 28,488 slides. And when I say railraod, that includes streetcars, interurban, trackside stuff.

The count does not include all the bus, fire truck, fire plug, manhole cover, and city slides. There could be another 1000 or so of them.

I do know one thing. By the time I'm done sorting and stacking, I'm gonna know the difference between a GP9 and a SD40! It has been a ton of fun going thru all these things and I have not seen 1/4th of it all.

So we have everything pretty much sorted by railroad. Now we are going to start sorting by type of rolling stock/locos.
 
We are getting to the end and I'm real sure we are going to make 27,000 before we are done! 27,000 slides, who has that many slides????:eek:

During since May 2001 when I began shooting slide film I have shot roughly 20,000 slides. During that same time period I bought and/or traded roughly another 5000 slides. My mentor has shot roughly 75,00 slides over the last 28-30 years that he has shot slide film. I do know others that are well over the 100,000 mark. There are other guys in the hobby that can blow that number out of the water still.

Bryan Jones
Brooks,KY
 
During since May 2001 when I began shooting slide film I have shot roughly 20,000 slides. During that same time period I bought and/or traded roughly another 5000 slides. My mentor has shot roughly 75,00 slides over the last 28-30 years that he has shot slide film. I do know others that are well over the 100,000 mark. There are other guys in the hobby that can blow that number out of the water still.

Bryan Jones
Brooks,KY

I can see how someone can amass such a huge collection. They take up little space, and I must admit, they are quite fun to look at. One thing I really like about this collection is a bunch of it is local to my area, so I know the locations. I know the lines that are no longer here, yet here are photographs of trains on these long gone tracks. Takes me back to the days of youth when I had nothing better to do than go watch trains all day. And a kid growing up in the 60th and "L" street area of Omaha back in the day had plenty of train watching locations. I had it made! I had the UP main to the north, the CB&Q to the south, Mo Pac to the west and the C&NW to the east. I was boxed in! All within a 5 minute bike ride.

Now on to the collection.

There is some killer UP steam stuff I have found, including some in station night shots. Have found some shots taken at Summit that are action packed as the trains struggled to get up out of the bottom. Lots of yard stuff and main shop shots. And one real neat thing, the guy liked to shoot rolling stock fresh from the car shops. It's neat to see yellow "automated railway" UP box cars, all bright and clean, fresh passenger equipment, and MOW rolling stock.

But the collection also covers all the great railroad action over in Council Bluffs. Lots of turntable action at different locations, yard shots, service ramp shots.

As the next few weeks go by, I'm gonna start scanning in slides and I will post them as I find time. So hold on, it's gonna be a fun ride!:)
 
This one sounds very interesting. I am very interested in your New England material. plus anything else you might be unloading. Please keep me in mind.

Bob
 
Not sure if you saw my reply yesterday - I'm very interested in any New England material, Please let me know when you decide to sell.

Bob
 
Not sure if you saw my reply yesterday - I'm very interested in any New England material, Please let me know when you decide to sell.

Bob

The original post is over five years old. I would send the OP a PM to make sure he has gotten your message.
 




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