Melted Ilford XP2 negatives

[Wawan Saputra]

Am in the midst of scanning my stash of negatives from school days and realized ~6 rolls of Ilford XP2 negatives I had have melted - not sure what's the correct term to call this situation.

Puzzled as they were stored in the a few binders together with other negatives from different brands: Kodak, Fuji, Konica, Agfa, etc., of different types and format ranging from 110-120; B&W, Colour, unmounted Slides. They were mostly taken 1985-200x and they were stored in my cabinet with no direct sunlight at room temperature (~26-33 degree C, I'd guess).

They were purchased, used and processed in the early 1990s, and have been in storage untouched for two decades.

Logically speaking, if heat is the problem then my other negatives would be affected as well - they were put randomly among the binders.

Naturally, am very frustrated with the whole situation - losing precious photo from travels and events.

Questions:
1. Does XP2 has a very low tolerance to heat?
2. Is it possible to rescue them? I suspect not but thought of asking

On a side note, found my old stash of unused XP2 rolls that were stored in the fridge for ages to be rusty - the only brand affected.

Does anyone have similar encounter or insights?

Thank you.

 

[Donald Qualls]

To me, that looks more like gelatin softened by moisture; the base seems unaffected.

 

[railwayman3]

I've never had any particular issues with XP2, the only difference to B&W is that it's a C41 film, presumably similar to standard colour negative film for storage and archival properties.
My guess is that this is a problem with the plastic storage sleeves, maybe the film has been put in the sleeves in damp conditions or before it was absolutely dry from processing, or the sleeves are not "archival". Also, going back some years, I think that a lot of sleeves and storage folders were made from very basic PVC or other cheap plastics, and I have also seen damage to documents and other collectables after some years stored in these unsuitable materials.
I don't think that you will be able to recover anything after such bad damage. If you still have prints from the negs, you could make copies from these ?

 

[foc]

+1 for the plastic storage sleeve problem.
If you look closely at the negs, some still have the numbers and edge markings while others don't. This would suggest to me that the area of the negs with the edge markings showing weren't in contact with the sleeving. No archival sleeving can cause storage problems.

There is one other reason and it could be a bad minilab processed film without a proper wash (so call washless) and stabalized bath or just poor C41 processing.

I am sorry for your loss as I don't think you can salvage anything.

 

[glbeas]

I second the thought of improper washing. Consider the fact that fixer is hygroscopic and even a tiny amount will slowly pull moisture from its environment. If whoever processed this didnt run a wash there could have been a lot of fixer in the film.

 

[AgX]

For gelatin to melt it first must be wet and then heated.

 

[foc]

I have looked again at the OP photo of the negs and I don't think they look like melted emulsion. The pattern looks more like the negs sticking to the plastic sleeve.

Maybe the OP could post a photo of just one sheet of sleeving and not overlapping images of sleeving.

Melted emulsion should look like this

 

[ic-racer]

I'd print them, not everyone is into representational art.

 

[AgX]

The pattern looks more like the negs sticking to the plastic sleeve.

Film with the emulsion side just sticking to the sleeve would neither lead to the edge effects nor to a gross vanishing of the image.
I aggree the given image is far from being a good reprentation. But already it can be said that frames hardly can be distinguished, image information seemingly lost and only rebate signing visible, best near the (aerated) ends of sleeves.

At this stage I am led to think of acetic-acid-syndrom, which however is not to be expected at film so young (even already having barcode signing).
Thus a processing error (maybe added with improper storage) seems more likely.

 

[Wawan Saputra]

Thanks for the insights. Unfortunately I do not have all the printed photo as some have been distributed to family and friends years back. I'll take this as lesson learnt

Meanwhile, here's one of the rolls in the sleeve - please note that it's not held flat against the lightbox.

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

Very sad to know that your valuable negatives have reached this state. On the positive side, the negatives look like pieces of abstract art. There could be some way of repurposing them.