Help guessing age of old Kodak film?

Hello, all,

I have an exposed roll of Kodak 122 Verichrome film that I found at a camera store in San Diego. The backing paper is brown, and the spools are black metal with a wooden insert. I've been putting off the attempt to develop it, but it's time to see if there's anything on it.

I have two questions I'm hoping you can help me with. First, am I correct that the brown paper indicates that this is Verichrome rather than Verichrome pan? All of the pan rolls I've seen are in red paper. Secondly, can anyone help me with an approximate date range for this film? I'd like to get an idea of how much fog I'm likely to be dealing with here.

Thanks in advance.

- CJ

IIRC Verichrome film was replaced by Verichrome Pan in the early 1950s, but the wooden-cored spool I would think is much earlier than this. My best guess would be 1925 plus or minus 10 years (122 film was sold from 1903 to 1971). I would have this film blessed by a priest or rabbi before you develop it - getting a usable image will be a true miracle!

Verichrome Pan replaced Verichrome about 1954ish, if that helps.

Thanks. Yes, I do know that much, but I can't find any information on how to tell Verichrome from Verichrome Pan. I find lots of mentions on both films via google, but nothing that helps with distinguishing them from each other. Hmmm. I did find a lab here in the Denver Metro area that specializes is processing very old film. Unfortunately, after googling them, I've discovered huge numbers of complaints from people who sent them their films and never saw it again. Scary.

Free advice and worth every penny, but I haven't found any film post-1950 that still had wooden inserts or central posts to the spools, though this might be one I've missed. I believe that Verichome Pan came on all metal spools.

Thanks very much, that's helpful.

you might find an example of the film on the westfordcomp.com site. The guy has a hobby of finding/hunting down found exposed film in old cameras, processing it, and then showing the cameras, sometimes the film, andan imaginary commentary of the scanned images. I find the site very intersting and drop in aevery few months to see what might be new.

Good Afternoon, Cheryl,

Film that old is likely to be on a cellulose nitrate base. That stuff has a reputation for being subject to spontaneous ignition. I'd treat it very carefully.

Konical

IIRC, roll films of Panatomix X or Plus X had brown backing. That was in the 50s or 60s. I may very well be wrong. I can't actually remember Panatomix X in roll sizes, so it must have been Plus X. Super X and Super XX had green stripes on yellow backing.

PE

Whiteymorange said:

Free advice and worth every penny, but I haven't found any film post-1950 that still had wooden inserts or central posts to the spools, though this might be one I've missed. I believe that Verichome Pan came on all metal spools.

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I've some Agfa 120 B&W from the early 60's that still used wooden inserts.
(Not relevant really, but interesting that they were still around then. )

Photo Engineer said:

IIRC, roll films of Panatomix X or Plus X had brown backing. That was in the 50s or 60s. I may very well be wrong. I can't actually remember Panatomix X in roll sizes, so it must have been Plus X. Super X and Super XX had green stripes on yellow backing.

PE

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Thanks for the detailed response. I decided to play it safe, since I'm not used to working with such old film, and took it to David at dr5. I realized as he was looking at it that the paper is red -- it's just so faded that it looked like brown paper. He's going to take a crack at it, and we'll see what we've got. Could be a whole lotta nothin', but it's fun, anyway.

Thanks, again, everyone.

- CJ

Certainly would be Verichrome (orthochromatic). The film itself is a bright red-magenta color, very different from the grey look of Verichrome Pan.

All Kodak films were on safety base by 1951, and Verichrome Pan didn't come out until 1954. Plus, Kodak really doesn't have any details of exactly when each film and size went to safety, so it could easily be safety film. Or it could be cellulose nitrate. Kodak pretty consistently edge-printed Safety Film as such.

In small quantities like this, nitrate film really isn't problematic, not enough to spontaneously combust. Now, one hundred 1200-foot reels of nitrate 35mm movie film, that's a bomb! There's no way to put out a nitrate film fire, you just have to wait it out.

The wood spool does point to more likely 1940's.

They can develop by inspection under a red safe-light at dr5, since it's orthchromatic film. HC-110 dilution B would be a great choice. Say 9 minutes at 68F.