The mystery of the antique camera film – reboot

Last Sunday, I went to the 440 Art Center in Schenectady, as it was time to take down the polar panorama shots I exhibited at last month’s Schenectady Art Night.  I arrived a little early, and while I waited for someone to unlock the building and allow me access to the facility, I took a walk down Jay Street and did some window-shopping.

Of course I can’t resist going into a used record store, I think I’m hardwired to do that.  I don’t buy records any more, but there’s no crime in looking.

I putter around the store, scoping the vintage vinyl.  And then I look up to one of the high shelves.

There’s what looks like an old camera, still in its original weather-beaten box.  A vintage Ansco Cadet 127 pseudo-TLR film camera, manufactured in Binghamton, still in its box.  It has only two f-stop settings, “col” and “b&w” – I’ve seen sundials with more settings – but you know what, it’s kind of kitschy and cute, so I took the camera down from the shelf.

I look inside the box.  Camera still looks intact.  And then I see what looks like, in the back of the camera, through the tiny yellow window – old, undeveloped film.  It was on frame #10, so there were at least three shots left (the camera takes 127 “vest pocket” film, which has a maximum of 12 shots).  It also means that at least nine pictures were taken with this camera.  Nine mystery pictures.

I put the camera back in the box.

“Can I help you?” the store owner smiled, walking over to me.

“How much for this camera?” I asked.

He looked at the camera.  “I can sell you the camera – and the attached flash in this box over here – for six dollars total.”

Out came the wallet.  Six dollars later, I had another vintage camera.

And another mystery roll of 127 color film inside.

Now let’s do a little time traveling.

Last February, I found vintage film inside a Kodak Brownie Super 27, and sent the film off to Rocky Mountain Film Lab – where it is still languishing, undeveloped, somewhere in RMFL owner Steven Dock’s home.  I understand Dock declared Chapter 13 bankruptcy recently.  I’ve seen the bankruptcy filing.  There are thousands of creditors on the list.  For some reason, I’m not one of them.  I have to decide if I want to be a secured creditor and wait five years to get my $42.50 back, or just ask for my film back and call it a learning experience.

But the real issue here is – not only did Dock not develop my film; he also cheated me out of a great blog post about the old film.

But in the meantime, I now have a second chance to put together a blog post on missing, old film that survived for decades in a camera.

But I have to get this new old mystery film developed.

And between you and me, I ain’t gonna be rockin’ no mountains this time.

After checking my options, I decided to send this little roll of film to Film Rescue International, which has offices in both North Dakota and Saskatchewan.  They claim to do their processing in small runs, and their next batch of film is scheduled to be developed starting in mid-August.  The one drawback is that they cannot process Kodacolor-X in color, and really nobody can.  I’ll just have to be satisfied with black-and-white prints if I can get anything.

There’s still three pictures left in the roll.  I gotta burn those off before I can take the film out of the camera.  Ah, the rituals of film camera usage.  I drove downtown and took three snapshots of Nipper atop the Arnoff Building.  I mean, really… it’s either Nipper or the Coca-Cola building in Schenectady, that’s what I use to test any new camera.

Those last photos used up the roll, and I was able to eject the cartridge out of the Ansco Cadet, tape the roll up so that it was secured properly, and send it off to Film Rescue International.  Interesting thing about the Ansco – in order to get the film out of the camera, you pull a small latch in the back of the camera, and the bottom of the camera falls out – film, winder, the whole kerfuffle.

So off this batch of vest pocket film goes, heading out to North Dakota for development and to find out if anything at all has survived on this film.

That, and now there’s a race.  I’ve given Steven Dock at Rocky Mountain Film Lab a six-month head start.  Anybody want to place some bets that Dock will get my film back to me before Film Rescue International does?

I’ve called two-headed coin flips with more certainty than that.