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WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE 16mm COLLECTORS?

Sales on 16mm have slowed down a bit on eBay, so where are all the 16mm collectors?
Seeking 16mm: That's Entretainment I and II, concert films, music clips, optical prints of Scopitones and other reels.
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WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE 16mm COLLECTORS?

Hmm, I guess I'm the last one alive? Maybe 16mm collectors are too busy looking at/buying films on eBay.
If I can scrape together about a million bucks, I am going to buy several seller's complete inventories, yeah!
Message 2 of 75
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WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE 16mm COLLECTORS?

Yes, there are still 16mm film collectors out there. I have over seven hundred 16mm films in my collection. Right now I've relocated and the films are in temperature controlled storage and packed away. Since I'm currently in a rental home I don't want to unpack all these films twice. So, some day when I have a new home and my film library again. Sigh.

I don't have any films on your wish list but think you have some very fine requests. When I had time to sell 16mm films last year on ebay it was very time consuming because I reviewed every film for qualtiy and story content so that the buyer could pay a fair price on film condition. I loved doing this because I think I'm a born media librarian who likes cataloging collections and writing movie reviews. I was very happy to know my films were being sold to independent movie houses, families who love to show garage movies, and even a collector in Japan!

I hope you find what you're looking for!!
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WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE 16mm COLLECTORS?

Hi Media1928,

Thanks for your reply.

I can certainly relate to the moving & storing of films, though my collection is only half the size of yours. Why do we collect heavy things? Why can't we just collect toothpick holders or inscribed grains of rice?... I helped a freind move his collection of 35mm films & old 78 records one weekend....ouch!

I just recently got many of my films & huge vinyl LP collection out of storage, where much of it had been for 5 to 9 years some of it. I hope you are able to reunite with your collection soon and get the reels spinning again. I love screening real/reel films. All the DVD projection these days makes me yawn. It seesm more like Giant Screen TV than actual cinema.

16mm sellers on eBay seem to range from lazy/few details to very extensive listings. Some have still frames that you can click on and it plays a 30 second clip of the film! It must take hours to make listings like that. Maybe they have special software and a simple system for posting. I buy mostly from the sellers that post great details and photos.

It must have been very satisfying for you to further extend the life of a film by passing it on to other collectors through sales on eBay.

Thanks for your compliment on the films I seek. I do theme movie nights(always free, 650 shows so far). I'm hoping to do a music-themed film fest that covers everything from opera, latin, swing, jazz & blues to clips from classic musicals, as well as great concert films like The Last Waltz, No Nukes, Let It Be, Concert For Bangladesh, and the 1959 Newport Jazz Festival. Those last five films will cost me at least $250-600 each. It will be worth it to see people enjoying the films.

My cinema is a labor of love, greatly inspired by the film Cinema Paradiso. This is me: www dot HighwayCinema dot homestead dot com
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WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE 16mm COLLECTORS?

(bump)

Where's all the Big Reelers anyway? Let me know if there are other website forums I should be looking at.
Thanks,
Hwycinema
Message 5 of 75
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WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE 16mm COLLECTORS?

Hey, if anybody has a 16mm film of The Wild Affair (Terry-Thomas, Nancy Kwan), let me know.
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WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE 16mm COLLECTORS?

I'll email your that title to some other collectors.
Glad to see a 16mm posting. I thought that everyone had left the building!
HM, Highway Cinema
Message 7 of 75
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WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE 16mm COLLECTORS?

bump
Message 8 of 75
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WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE 16mm COLLECTORS?

I don't collect as much as you guys but I have a few.
Message 9 of 75
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WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE 16mm COLLECTORS?

I'm just glad I'm a film buyer not a film seller, seems like it's pretty slow these days for them.
Message 10 of 75
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WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE 16mm COLLECTORS?

3d_laboratory
Enthusiast
just getting into this great hobby, spurred on from a vague memory of a 16mm print I saw as a child in school: Alexander and the Car with the Missing Headlight. I finally figured out the title of it through extensive searches on the net (it was also a picture book, which was available in our gradeschool library). So when the title came up as a 16mm film for sale, I grabbed it and then bought a 16mm projector...now I'm hooked! I later found out that this movie came from Weston Woods, a publishing house that published the book as well as the movie...in fact, if you find their catlogue on the web, you will see they are clearing out their remaining 16mm films, although they are way too expensive for me ($175 for a 400 ft title, for instance--granted, they're new, but sheesh). So now I look for Weston Woods stuff, in the event I find others I had seen as a child and forgot about. Recently, I found another title I had loved as a kid: The Red Balloon...Italian film about a boy and a balloon that seems to have a mind of its own. People think I'm crazy when it comes to this nostalgic stuff, but low and behold, they remade this short film into a full length movie in 2007! And the original film itself won many awards at the time of its release (1957?).

Since I have been collecting these, I even found one I NEVER thought I'd see again but it was a favorite as a kid: The Huffless Puffless Dragon...It was an anti-smoking film that had beatnik-type animation and music--one day came upon it at ebay completely by accident! Didn't really do the trick, though, because I smoked for 18 years.

But in my searched/purchases, I have come across some junk--warped, separating prints, spliced to death, but not described as such. That's always a disappointment, but every now and then I come across a gem that almost makes up for all of that. Case in point, a film I had never seen or heard of before: The Lottery. Apparently, this was another film favored by people that had seen it in high school (I never did)...concerns a town where they have an anual lottery...by the end of the film, you fing out that the purpose of the lottery is quite sinister...this one had a very young Ed Begley Jr. in it...always fun to come across some obscure 16mm title with a famous face in it!

Message 11 of 75
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WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE 16mm COLLECTORS?

3d_laboratory
Enthusiast
fing=find

Message 12 of 75
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WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE 16mm COLLECTORS?

you should read the original story,it's by shirley jackson,total creepazoidness!!!i don't collect 16mm,but my friend in hawaii does,he's got a ton of them in a cc storage in vegas,just waiting to move so he can go get them!
Message 13 of 75
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WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE 16mm COLLECTORS?

Hi 


 I guess I'm bumping this discussion again. Last reply was in 2008... 5 years ago? Are there that few 16mm collectors these days? From 16mm sales on eBay I can tell there are still buyers, but maybe they don;t participate in eBay Discussions?


 


 During the last 3 months I relocated my 16mm collection to a film vault storage space. I'm going to create a screening room nearby as well, though my cinema is mostly a road show... Highway Cinema.


 


My film vault has great shelves for my 16mm archive, and also decided to pit other film-related things on the shelves: film books, scripts, old production books from the feature films and other film productions I've worked on since 1981, movie posters(some framed and on the walls), lobby cards, VHS tapes(for you young people, those were the "8-track tape" of video prior to DVDs and video files...), a few laser discs(never did own a machine to play them on), many DVDs, film magazines, etc. I also set up one of my great old phonographs and have a shelf for soundtracks, on vinyl LPs & 45's, cassettes, 8-track, and this new thing they call a CD... 🙂


 


 So... what's on your collection besides 16mm, or instead of?


 


 Eventually I'll probably donate my archives to a film organization, sure would be better than having some relative or estate seller sell them off at yard sale prices...

Message 14 of 75
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WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE 16mm COLLECTORS?

Hi,


 


Not wealthy enough to be a true collector but have just a few films, 16mm and 8mm. I'm looking for good quality prints or negs of Machaty's "Ecstasy" (Ekstase) from 1933, with Hedy Lamarr (Kiesler, at the time). Any version or format is of interest as long as it adds either in quality or footage to what I already have. If you know of someone who has it but does not want to sell, I'd like to rent/borrow it from them!


 


Thanks

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