Here's a predicament; My wife's late Aunt left us boxes of color slides she took throughout her life. These mostly are of local subjects and family, but I discovered today, they include 1947 color slide images of the Myrtle Avenue EL, Bangor and Aroostook, Maine Central, and Canadian Pacific trains, both steam and Diesel powered. There are shots of the car float operations around Manhatten, taken while she was on a Circle Line Cruise. I have also come across a b&w snapshot, poor quality this time, of SP F-Units in Black Widow paint. She was a Hell of a science teacher and we're a railroad family, thus the interest.

If I ever get a scanner capable of doing good quality slides, I'll copy them. In the meantime, I'd like to put them to some good use. Suggestions? Do publications have any interest in this stuff? Most of the slides are from the late 40's up into 1965. Just a few are railroad, but all are interesting.



glueck@maine.edu

My suggestion would be possible donation to a library or non profit preservation group. At IRM we regulary get donations of slide and photo collections and have over 20,000 images catalogued and archived in our Strahorn Library. Much of it is very rare and with significant historical merit, but probably of little commercial value.

Perhaps split up the segments of the group you have now with some going to a local Historical Society. The rail stuff really does not fit in with the IRM focus so I am not soliciting for them. But I would try to do some homework to find a group or groups to receive them that would not pack them away in a shoebox, but would catalog them, archive them in professional storage media, and have the possibility of sharing this wonderful work with legitimately interested parties.

Bob Kutella


68trolley@comcast.net

Richard, stock houses retain millions of diverse images for just the purpose you state. Sounds like you've got some really interesting old stuff there, good luck with it.



Corbis
SJHussar@aol.com