50 th ANNIV. PUSH

[Alistair Gordon]

With the 50 th anniv. publicity ready to cut in,now would be a good time to consider how we could publicise the fact that there may be up to 106 missing Doctor Who episodes lying undiscovered or discarded in the lofts of households both in the UK and countries abroad where the programme was shown.
Does anyone have any contacts who could arrange for articles to appear in national newspapers both here and abroad giving interesting snippets re previous finds and also details of an orginisation to whom contact could be made were anything interesting found?
I would also recommend that a small "finders fee" should be offered by this organisation so that people will have an incentive to actually go and look in their (and elderly relatives) lofts.
I would be happy to contribute towards such a finders fee but first we would need to agree upon a suitable organisation (BBC would presumably not be in favour of paying so it would have to be an independent group who could be trusted not to keep any finds to themselves) to whom contact should be made should anything of interest be found.
There has also never been a better time to lobby for a special "Treasure Hunt" style TV programme to be broadcast next year.Again,does anyone know how to do such lobbying?

[Jaspal Cheema]

Oh Dear,we seem to have had this type of discussion before.Under no circumstances should money be offered in the the pursuit of missing episodes-this could cause no end of legal problems as well as increases in hoaxes and frauds!By all means contact the BBC and all the usual people if anything crops up,and advertising is always welcome but no financial incentives please!

[Rob Moss]

This. At the moment, all the hoaxers stand to gain is a smug feeling of having got one over on everybody. Start offering money and you raise the stakes, making it more worthwhile for them to do it. Bad idea.

[Steve Smith]

I'll also mention that the two episodes recovered last year were talked about on the news on television, nothing has turned up since.

I feel a newspaper article may be a waste of time.

[Elliott Prince]

As much as I'd love for more episodes to be returned (as I'm sure we all would), an enterprise like this just would not be financially viable; the cost alone of putting small ads in national papers would be in the thousands of £'s. And, unfortunately, the market for Classic Who can't even compare to the one for the Smith rubbish they're churning out

[John Wall]

A bit of free publicity is always worth having but the costs otherwise required to get decent coverage would be prohibitive. I'm happy to be proven wrong but I think the best hope is in private collections.

[Alistair Gordon]

In this World if you want something then you must be willing to pay for it.To sit back and wait for someone to come and give it to you for free is a recipe for sitting back and never getting anything.With this altruistic attitude it is hardly surprising that there has hardly been any returns in last 19 years.I would bet that there are episodes out there in private hands which have only been obtained because the buyer has been prepared to part with cash to obtain them.Obviously such people are not now going to return them without compensation.

[Richard Bignell]

I completely disagree with you on this one, Alistair. Every single return that has been made thus far, has been made without a single penny changing hands. Using that method, things have been returned and not once has anyone asked for any money in recompense. To start offering money now is setting a very dangerous precedent.

[Rob Moss]

Nov 29, 2012 15:28:12 GMT Alistair Gordon said:

In this World if you want something then you must be willing to pay for it.To sit back and wait for someone to come and give it to you for free is a recipe for sitting back and never getting anything.With this altruistic attitude it is hardly surprising that there has hardly been any returns in last 19 years.I would bet that there are episodes out there in private hands which have only been obtained because the buyer has been prepared to part with cash to obtain them.Obviously such people are not now going to return them without compensation.

I seem to recall that the two episodes last year were bought at a jumble sale but were still returned for free. The Lion was bought by Bruce Grenville and returned for free. Gordon Hendry bought Evil 2 and Faceless Ones 3 and returned them for free.

Not to mention of course that there's no evidence that any collectors anywhere actually have any missing episodes, acquired for free or paid for.

[D. Frame]

I have a nasty feeling that if its a missing episode you were paying for the price tag would be well into the thousands. Didn't that William Hartnell episode on ebay that wasnt lost go for about £1.700. I might be remembering it wrongly. If anyone ever payed?
Money sounds easy but who's ? And where does it stop when you've pushed the price of an episode up and up till they become completely overinflated.

[Rob Moss]

Exactly. Let's just say you offer someone a reward of two thousand pounds for a print of The Space Pirates: 4 (to use an earlier example). How do you deal with a collector who subsequently turns up with an episode of Power of the Daleks, or the last episode of Master Plan, who is demanding five grand because it's more important/better/got Daleks in it..?

[Jaspal Cheema]

Rob,as a Global Moderator you're not supposed to talk about Power of the Daleks!Remember the web-site lurkers are watching your every post (move)!I'd be very careful if I were you...

[Rob Moss]

I thought I was pushing my luck mentioning Space Pirates: 4..!

[John Andersen]

Nov 29, 2012 16:35:21 GMT Rob Moss said:

Exactly. Let's just say you offer someone a reward of two thousand pounds for a print of The Space Pirates: 4 (to use an earlier example). How do you deal with a collector who subsequently turns up with an episode of Power of the Daleks, or the last episode of Master Plan, who is demanding five grand because it's more important/better/got Daleks in it..?

Ian Levine has been offering 2,000 pounds per episode for years, but nobody has come forward with anything to collect. If somebody wanted more money than that, they could just put the print on eBay instead. The best and most economical way to spread the word is by talking to other people face to face. They might actually know something. The next best way is for some fans to take out small advertisements in papers and film magazines. It doesn't hurt to try, but people have been doing that for ages and not much has resulted from those ads.

[Rob Moss]

To be fair though, who, outside of fandom and the Blue Peter audience would be aware of his offer..?

But again, the reason that nobody has come forward may be because there isn't anything to find..!