Can decades old exposed film be successfully developed?

Hello all, my mother passed away a couple of years ago and among her

possessions were several rolls of exposed film. I can only

guesstimate that the film is from the nearly to mid 1960's. One

roll reads Kodak verichrome Pan 620. Can it be developed? Is there

anyone in my area that can help me with this?

One option may be to take the film to the University of Louisville

Photographic Archives and see if they can help. Any help would be

appreciated, these could potentially be valuable family photos.

Thanks, Ron H.

 

(I didn't know where to post this so can Admin. please put it where

it fits best?)

Gene M proves it can been done all the time. Some come out some don't but he is the best at it around. He might do it for you if you do not want to pay R****M******labs an arm and a leg and wait months to get it back. It is a panchromatic black and white film so it can be easily processed the problem is it will have developed a strong base fog by now and you need a special tweaked developer to overcome the fog and still get some contrast. I think he uses a diafine like 2 part developer. Good luck. Let us see the results :)

 

,Grinder

 

Paging Gene M. Paging Gene M.

Anyplace that can develop B&W film in 120 size should have no trouble with this. Same size film. Just use Kodak's last times for Verichrome Pan, and it will come out quite useable. Long shelf life and strong latent image keeping were important design goals for Verichrome Pan.

 

Just find a pro lab that does real B&W.

Another place to check would be Filmrescue.com, although Verichrome

Pan uses relatively standard B&W process (620 is size, like 220).

Because you won't have color-fading issues, it seems promising.

That would be Rocky Mountain labs up there- look for them on the internet. I had some old film done by B&W Imaging here in Dallas several years ago.

 

Results: Sometimes good, sometimes not, sometimes in-between. Depends on the film, the age, the storage conditions.

 

If you think there are family pictures on there, try a lab that specializes in that work.

The problem with just letting anyone process it as a new roll of B&W is base fog. The fact that the paper could be stuck to the film and the emulsion is going to be brittle along with the film base. If you would like to give it a go yourself I suggest lots of patience and diafine and be prepared to scan instead of printing them.

 

,Grinder

Thanks all for your responses, I have no experience at developing film myself so I won't be trying that. I will check out the services you recommended here. If someone can hook me up with Gene M. in the meantime I'd like to see if he would be interested in helping out. I really think that these photos have some sentimental value so I want to send them to the person who could get the best chance of positive results. Does that make sense?

Thanks, Ron

Pop over to the "classic cameras" forum here, and you will find posts by Gene M. He's the man for this job.

Thanks everyone, 5 rolls of film are in Gene's hands, he or I will share the results when finished. Thank you all for your help. Ron