What are you people doing with your scanners?

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

Are you scanners working on any interesting jobs?

I bought a 'pig in a poke' film lot a while back. Supposedly a 16mm short of Betty Brosmer in it. But I have not looked through it to verify. It was a total speculation that I bought from a swap meet picker. I'm a sucker for those things. It was not cheap either. He said he paid $5 for the film lot or some such thing. It does not matter to me, I'm not in it for the $, I am in it for the history. It may be a total waste, or it could be a treasure. Not much film footage on Betty out there. I'm in the process of reorganizing film collection and things are a mess. 

 

Here is Betty in her prime!

DDTJRAC

Also have an 8mm lot I picked up of circus films. I hate 8mm, but it was a nice collection from a circus promoter and performer. His personal collection, so picked it up. 

What are you scanning that is interesting and noteworthy?

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Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Archival Collection
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Small Gauge Film Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Advertising Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. VHS Video Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Popular Culture Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Audio Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Social Documentary Photography
 

 

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

No one is scanning anything noteworthy to share with us?  Too bad.

Recently I picked up something interesting from 1936. A 16mm home movie of a hunting trip on a boat in Alaska. Alaska became a state in 1959. Apparently, there was no problem shooting Bald Eagles back then. I'm not sure if they kept the eagle or just the talons. There is a shot of the talons mounted to a box below. Maybe the bird is in the box? The film may show the story when I see it...or not. Lots of mysteries in history, but vintage films and photos help solve some of the puzzle.

I've got a lot of hunting films in the cine' film archive. Love em! But I love lots of areas of archival preservation beside hunting. That is one of my problems. Wide ranging interests and not enough $, space and time. Right now, I'm about 55% done with a massive part-time job of looking through 27,000 glass plates, prints and negs from 1890-1910. Hope to be done by Nov 2025. Got enough work for 10 lifetimes...just in cine' film. 

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Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Archival Collection
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Small Gauge Film Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Advertising Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. VHS Video Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Popular Culture Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Audio Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Social Documentary Photography

[Dan Baxter]

On 5/29/2025 at 10:38 PM, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

No one is scanning anything noteworthy to share with us?  Too bad.

Well you can't expect people to be sharing their client's work etc here (unless it's archiving work publicly uploaded), here's some 28mm film that was shot in 1916:

Obviously that's a print not the original negative, the negs are probably long gone by now!

[Mark Dunn]

Not everything needs preserving.

[David Mullen ASC]

 

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

On 6/2/2025 at 3:02 AM, Dan Baxter said:

Well you can't expect people to be sharing their client's work etc here (unless it's archiving work publicly uploaded), here's some 28mm film that was shot in 1916:

Obviously that's a print not the original negative, the negs are probably long gone by now!

No Dan, not if it is a problem. But talk about things in general. And that is why I would never want to be a pro scanner. I do not want to do work I can't talk about or use. Ask yourself this question. Would you be doing the same work you are doing now, if you didn't get paid for it? Now, what about doing the work you are doing no if you had to pay to do it? 

Edited June 3 by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

On 6/2/2025 at 6:03 AM, Mark Dunn said:

Not everything needs preserving.

 

Everyone has different interests. Some of the things people preserve on Reddit's Data Hoarder are garbage to me. But they are important to the archivist that saves it. And it adds to the historical record. It is good not to have prejudice when it comes to archival work. Check your prejudice at the door. Even so, one archivist can't do it all. So, we have to set limits.

One thing I found helpful is to archive samples. I dig through the trash at the post office a lot and find various trade magazines and journals once in a while. I go to their sites and see if they offer PDF archives. If so, I download a sample copy to upload to the Internet Archive. If no PDF's, I scan the copy I found in the trash and upload it. That allows people to know of its existence, and they can do more work if they like on their end.  I transfer the work to the person interested in the thing.

Someone complained I don't make PDF's. I told them I give you decent JPEGs...make your own PDF's. I can't do it all. I talked with some Russian software people many years ago about making a basic PDF program. One that was cheap in price and easy to use. Just import JPEGs and export and a PDF in a second. But they never came out with it. I'm always looking for time savers to be able to produce more work.

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

This would have been an interesting film to get. Weegee at work in NYC!

From the samples shown, most of the film was not Weegee. It was a small reel and not even full. I wanted it, but it was too $$ for my budget.