Help identifying a bulk mystery film

[illawarraflametree]

Hello everyone. The other week I nabbed a bulk roll of expired film for cheap cheap cheap on ebay. I was actually buying two pretty grotty bulk loaders with the intention of testing them, cleaning them up and maybe taking them apart and fixing any problems before maybe going on to resell them. However one of them came loaded with a mystery roll of bulk film!

This is what the label on the outside of the loader looked like before I cleaned it off:

VPS 160 -- after some googling (and I'd like to impress here the point that google is increasingly useless)... a bulk roll of Kodak Vericolor 160, right? "Cool to find a bulk roll of C-41, time to bracket a test roll and find out the optimal speed, who knows when it expired!" I think to myself.

Anyway, I finish loading the rest of the roll and labeling the resulting canisters as (prospective) C-41 film for my future reference. Then, with some difficulty, I pry open the loader and I'm greeted with this:

What the--?! It seems possible but exceedingly unlikely to me that someone loaded a bulk Kodak film onto a Fuji spool. This is what the film sticking out of the final canister looked like:

Now while I was cleaning the grotty label on the bulk loader off, I noticed there was another grotty label underneath. I can't really tell what it actually said though because it was covered in sticker gunk, paper, and texta bleedthrough from the top layer, but what I did read was what looked to be "Vel" (the rest was cut off) and "400". This doesn't make any sense to me as I don't believe there was ever a 400 speed Velvia, and nothing in "Neopan" resembles "Vel"... I read somewhere else on this forum that Fuji did used to sell bulk rolls of Velvia at a point so at least it's possible for it to be Velvia, but I can't explain what the 400 is supposed to mean if it is.

Finally, here's what the film looks like on the base and emulsion sides:

And here are Velvia 100 and Neopan 400:

If anybody has any insights to offer I would appreciate it!

I'm still going to bracket and shoot a test roll anyway. I'll develop it in C-41 as that's the cheapest and the edge markings should tell us everything we need to know anyway... But my 35mm camera is currently occupied and I'd love to find out what this is sooner rather than later just because I'm impatient lol

 

[AZD]

If you have the means, just develop an unexposed length in black and white chemicals to see what the edge marks say. Time isn’t critical. I think this may be the fastest way to find out.

 

[illawarraflametree]

If you have the means, just develop an unexposed length in black and white chemicals to see what the edge marks say. Time isn’t critical. I think this may be the fastest way to find out.

I'm considering doing this, although ideally I don't want to waste film (since I still need to do a bracketed test) or mix up a batch of developer (haven't got any black and white to process at the minute)

 

[Kino]

I'm considering doing this, although ideally I don't want to waste film (since I still need to do a bracketed test) or mix up a batch of developer (haven't got any black and white to process at the minute)

Consult a psychic?

There is no practical way to identify the film without processing some of it somehow.

 

[illawarraflametree]

I plan to process it anyjow, that's not why I posted this thread! I guess I should have worded my post better -- I'm not seeking a positive identification per se so much as suggestions as to what it *could* be based on the information that I have. Most 35mm films weren't sold in bulk rolls as far as I'm aware so that already narrows down options considerably; the fuji spool moreso. It's got still film perforations so it isn't Eterna.

The main thing that got me to post this in the first place was finding out that Velvia was ever sold in bulk. Some people must have bought it, so I thought maybe someone on this forum would be able to say something like, "well there's also Fuji XYZ that they sold and looks similar." I hardly expect someone to say "yeah that's definitely film XYZ, I can feel it!"

 

[MattKing]

Those look like still film perforations, so it probably isn't some sort of motion picture film stock.
The Fuji spool may have been re-used from something else - some have access to film re-spooled from 400 or 1000 foot lengths, although most of that is motion picture stock originally.
I would caution against relying on anything written in pen on the outside of a cassette. If the film came from someone who had settled on a particular film, they may have just re-used old cassettes and not bothered to update the writing.
Personally, I would develop a short length - 10 cm or so - of unexposed frames.

 

[blee1996]

If it were actually VPS 160, then C41 will be right developer.

Even if it were slide film (Fujichrome RVP), you can still process in C41 and get usable results. It is normal cross-processing, with elevated grain/contrast and some color shifts.

So I don't think you will go too wrong with your initial plan of developing in C41.

 

[Daniël - Tech&Music]

My guess would be that the previous owner mixed up VPS and NPS, given NPS 160 was a Fuji portrait film.
I can't find pictures of bulk rolls of it, but did see that someone on photographyreview.com mentioned buying it in bulk back in the day.

 

[illawarraflametree]

Very interesting, thanks for the info. In that case this might be a C41 film indeed. I'll find out soon enough!

 

[Agulliver]

I echo the advice to snip a few cm, enough to cover 2-3 frames, and develop unexposed film in B&W chemistry. That way you'll get some answers....firstly the edge markings should positively identify the film....you might also get an idea of how fogged the film is from age.