🚀 go-pugleaf

On Fri, 2 Jun 1995, Raymond A. Rogoway wrote:

> My class "inherited" many boxes of glass photographic plates for an electron
> microscope. I would like them to try and salvage the silver as part of an
> ecology/waste disposal project. I know there are ways to do it. Any pointers
 to
> where I can find the information?
>

Raymond,

In my previous response I neglected a very important consideration. How
old are those plates? Is there any historical value to the images on
them. There's value just in details of buildings, clothing, hair styles,
etc., even if the pictures are not completely documented. Best to check
with a local library, photograph collector, etc., before trashing the images.

Consider the case of the glass plate negatives Matthew Brady's
photographers took during the Civil War. After the war Brady's attempts to
market photos of the war were not successful. People wanted to forget
it. His attempts to sell them to the U. S. Government as historical
material were rebuffed. Glass was scarce after the war, so many of the
original plates were 'recycled' by removing the emulsion and using them as
window glass. Short sighted conservation? Hasty recycling? After Brady
died, what remained of his collection was acquired by the Library of
Congress, and may be seen there, but most of the original glass negatives
are gone forever. BTW, most of these were in full 3D stereo, as was most
photography in the early days. How far we've come--backward, to inferior
forms of photography. Remember when we showed high quality projected 16mm
instructional films in school classes? Now we have inferior quality, low
resolution, poor color videos and computer displays. More progress--downhill.
Why we couldn't *afford* 16mm films today, if we could find them.

Get an expert opinion before trashing the images. At the very least have
a professional photographer make prints or quality duplicate negatives from
them first.

        -- Donald