I’ve seen it all. Customers used to bring me slides in all kinds storage. Often, slides were still in a carousel — who knows how long ago their project went on the fringe. Some were in shoe boxes, with small stacks bound by rubberbands, so they don’t slide everywhere. There was usually no logic to the stacks. You could tell they had been thumbed through right before they brought them to me and gave up on trying to keep them in some kind of order.
One lady had them divided into vacations and labelled in waxed paper boxes. This was actually pretty cool because they are just the right width. Unfortunately, she didn’t realized that low-cost cardboard is not acid-free. Most of her photos were faded and pinkish, and I couldn’t recover a lot of their color. It was a sad day.
When I did the 4,000-slide job, they were in a drawer system that was obviously designed for slides. My grandma’s slides were intermingled with her photographs in her many boxes of geneaology material. Finally, lots and lots of people had them in Ziploc baggies. That is convenient, but a mess. It’s not very fun going back setting them all the right direction, especially when there are hundreds.
I am currently storing my slides in an acid-free box I bought on sale at Hobby Lobby. After I use my 35mm slide scanner, I’m going to number them, and line them all to make a bottom row. I’m going to cut a piece of acid-free scrapbook paper to size to separate the layers, and make a second layer of slides until the box is completely full. I never plan to access them again, so from this point, they can go into deep storage. I recommend a cool, dry place, of course.
Please share your ideas about 35mm slide storage, and let us know what works for you!
