What happened to the Bob Collins photo collection? I'm trying to secure prints and rights to publish a couple of photos in an upcoming book project for my museum. Does anyone have any leads?

-otto-

From what I recall, Bob Collins' material was split among various friends and colleagues. Mike Del Vecchio probably has much better handle on what happened to the Collins collection.

This was a collection of many years (late 30s into the late 80s) that should have been preserved intact in a good archive.

Howard P.

Piggybacking off this thread, someone just contacted me asking if I had any information about the Robert Graham collection. My respondent has a friend who has Graham's extensive albums but the negatives were sold years ago, and I have seen some steam photos on the Internet attributed to him (and have a couple of prints myself that my father owned). My respondent was wondering if some or all of Graham's photos could be published in book form to provide a little extra income for his friend. I am no expert in the field of publishing railroad photos in hard copy (my Rail Archive site is a non-profit operation). I would like to give my respondent some information about whether a salable book could be produced from Graham's prints (I don't know their sizes) or whether one would have to use the negatives for such a project. Also, I don't know whom to contact about finding an editor who would be interested in taking on such a project. Any advice would be welcome. (And, Otto, I suggested my respondent contact R&R for suggestions, since R&R reviews railroad photo books.)

From what I recall, the ARHS bought the LHR & RDG negatives, Gene Collora bought the Erie (or the majority of it) & LHR, and the rest was sold to other NE rail groups.

To continue the piggyback.... First, I'm no expert, but there may or may not be copyright issues. Depends if someone owns the rights to any of the original images. It doesn't sound like it but I'd check with a copyright attorney to be sure. General guidelines can be found here: http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm.

There are several services online for self-publishing. Or, if you were to design the book yourself, there are software applications you'll need and guidelines you'd have to follow before submitting it to the printer. Contact the printer for more info. Be prepared to participate in actively marketing the book. It all depends on how much money you're willing to spend on the extent of services you receive.

I've kept this as brief as possible as it may warrant its own thread if other members have or are interested in publishing.

Someone just dredged up an old thread about Robert Graham, where I had made some comments about looking for his original drawings used in a reproduction Soo Line locomotive diagram book. I pursued this for a bit a number of years ago. Here is what I found:

Upon Mr. Graham's death in the eighties, some or most of his collected materials went to John Rehor (sp?). I was told that Mr. Rehor's materials then went to Herb Harwood. I corresponded with Mr. Harwood a bit, and learned that upon Mr. Rehor's death, his widow was selling his collection piecemeal. Yes, Mr. Harwood had bought some material, but nothing I was interested in. I believe I was told That the bulk of Mr. Harwood's materials have now been donated to one of the Cleveland area college libraries. You might start there, to see if they happen to hold any of Mr. Graham's negatives.

As to copyright, while I am not an attorney either, I believe that for steam era materials, there is no valid copyright unless one was filed for. Yes, it is true that today virtually everything qualifies for copyright protection at the moment of creation, that is a product of a change in the law ca. 1972 or so. Prior to that, you did not have a copyright unless you made the effort to file for one. The new law did extend the term of existing copyrights, but if there was no per-existing copyright, it did not create one.

Considering that the modus operandi of most of the negative collectors was to expose multiple negatives of the same scene to have trading material, and then give them away, I think it's doubtful that Mr. Graham ever filed for copyrights on his photos. At any rate, a search of the Library of Congress records should turn them up if they exist.

Regarding my earlier question about Robert Graham, I just discovered that earlier (resurrected) thread about him, and see that my respondent has already posted there virtually the same message he sent to me via email. So the question is "out there" already. I notice in George Elwood's "Fallen Flags" site that there are photos contributed from the "Gary Steubben collection" that are attributed to Robert Graham. Given the widespread photo-trading of the 1930s-1950s one has to note the ambiguity between possible original photography and photos "owned" by a collector but not taken by him. I am sure that in many, or most, cases, the true origin of a steam-era photo may be impossible to track down.

Thanks for the tip, I'll see if I can follow up with Gene.

-otto-

Otto, Gene has the LNE negatives, not LHR. For some reason, I misread that when I posted last week. My mistake.

There's a nice sequence of LNE steam on the Chapman's grade with the tender boosters cut in on the lead and helper engines. I bought some of those prints from Gene at least 5 years ago, maybe longer......

Thanks! Either way, Erie images are what I'm looking for, Gene suggested I follow up with one of the NRHS chapters.

-otto-