I suspect that it is now not viable. I'm assuming this is early celluloid in
which case be very careful. I can remember many years ago now, a guy was in
the local press who was clearing out a property and found some old cine
film reels in the loft. He dropped on and it kind of blew up and nearly
burned the house down. I guess its Nitrate or something in the material.
Being a local paper, we never actually go the detail though.
It would be interesting to find out when film with dodgy materials in it
stopped being made and the decomposition modes of progressively younger
film.
Brian

--
----- --
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"Nick Odell" wrote in message
...
One of the items in a job lot of out-of-date film turned out to be an
unopened box of Ilford sheet film which must have been manufactured
between 1942 and 1945. It's the oldest unexposed film I've ever come
across.

I can't help comparing this to owning an unopened bottle of wine of a
bygone vintage: once it's opened, it's opened and all the mystique is
gone. It might have turned out to be a nice bottle of wine but it
might have been better never to know.

I'm asking uk.d-i-y for some scientific advice. Should I presume that
the base is celluloid, in which case what are the odds that the box
only contains a sticky gloop or crumbled powder? I've heard of ancient
movie film stock spontaneously combusting: is there any danger of that
and are there any specific precautions I should take?

If the odds are that the film is viable then I'll probably use it -
you can get some interesting effects from out-of-date film though the
oldest I've used so far only goes back to 1980 and the results I've
had with it have been pretty good. If the chances are pretty hopeless
I'll probably try and preserve the mystique and keep the box and its
secrets intact.

Thanks,

Nick