What are these spots on my negatives?

[Dave in Kansas]

I discovered that some of my older negatives have spots on them. These are Agfapan 100 developed in 1985 using either HC-110 or Rodinal, and fixed in Kodak Fixer (with hardner). The spots sometimes appear to have some color to them, not brown as I thought hypo stains would be. The spots always seem to be on the film base side, not the emulsion side. The negatives have been stored in plastic negative sheets made for a 3-ring binder, but stored flat in a box. Interestingly, my Panatomic-X negatives from the same period and stored identically appear to be fine.

I've attached a sample. These needed to be held at just the right angle for the spots to show up and that caused the bright light reflection in the 3rd frame.

Dave
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32186151@N03/5051251960/in/photostream

 

[Jim Noel]

Your sample is too small to enable a good look. The most likely possibility is a fungus of some sort, but I can not tell. You might try cleaning one of them with Listerine and see if that clears it off. If it is a fungus in the film base it likely will have eaten into the film and even if you are able to kill it spots will remain.