This is the reason I drove 1500 miles from Nashville to Fortuna, North Dakota. I now own 17 620 spools, 57 116s, 47 616s, 9 122s, 10 127s, and 3 130s. Most of them also have their original backing paper. Any buyers?
The story behind this lot of spools is circuitous. It began when I read about using 70mm bulk film (either movie film or photo film made for aerial photography and surveillance cameras) in a photo forum while looking for techniques to use vintage 116/616 film cameras. It turns out that 116/616 size film is virtually identical in size to 70mm film so that you can spool 70mm onto 116/616 spools without a problem. If you have the original backing paper, even better. There are also 70mm canisters and cassettes that 70mm is used in. So, I first started looking for 70mm canisters to play with. A lot on eBay got too expensive, so I missed them. I then remembered about Film Rescue International, an outfit in Indian Head, Saskatchewan that deals in processing old film formats. I contacted Greg there about 70mm canisters. He said he’s never come across any. It then occurred to me that he must have lots of old spools from clients.In fact, he had hundreds that he said were too much of a pain to sell on eBay but he also didn’t want to throw them away. He offered a variety of 110 of them for $250 (a good deal, especially since nearly all had original backing paper on them). I passed, but he agreed to sell a few for less. Noting that he mentioned that $250 would almost cover the cost of some photo software he needed, I promptly checked on prices that I could get said software for and found out that I could get it discounted. So, I offered a barter: software for lot of old film spools. He promptly agreed. I sent the software and he transferred the spools to his American mailing contact, Bev at the Border Tavern in Fortuna, North Dakota, just over the U.S.-Canadian border. Seems as if Bev began doing favors of taking in Canadian-bound parcels for friends, who then would have them picked up from her — it ends up being a lot cheaper than paying postage from the U.S. to Canada and vice versa. Well, Greg at FRI hired her on for dropoffs. She collects inbound parcels for him and he or another employee picks them up from her every so often while dropping off outbound with her. Word of Bev’s service spread so that now she has half her tavern full of UPS-sent boxes. In any case, Sara and I went there and fetched the spools:
We chatted with Bev and her husband Gary for a good while, learning that she is actually related by marriage to Sara through nieces and cousins and knows much of one side of Sara’s family. Small world. Big spool collection:
