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Post by Rob Hutchinson on Sept 14, 2012 12:31:20 GMT
Paul
Do you have a list of missing eps that were potentially returned fron Oz in '75?
It sounds like you are saying that all of these are potentially in the hands of collector(s)?
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Richard Develyn
Member
Living in hope that more missing episodes will come back to us.
Posts: 565
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Post by Richard Develyn on Sept 14, 2012 12:50:20 GMT
I believe that more episodes exist in private hands for the following reason.
If you assume that some number of episodes found their way into private collections, then those collectors could roughly be classified in the following ways:
a) Ones who will let the BBC have a copy of what they have
b) Ones who didn't know what they had was missing, but become (a) when they do
c) Ones who know what they have but want to make some money from it.
I don't know what proportion these groups of collectors are likely to be in, but I would suspect that human nature being what it is a good half of them will be in group (c).
Now as far as I know we haven't seen anything come back from this group. This suggests to me that these collectors are biding their time. Eventually they'll either take this stuff to their graves, pass it on to relatives (who more than likely will not share their enthusiasm, interest or beliefs) or try to sell it.
All we can do is wait.
I know it seems strange to conclude the existence of a group of private collectors from the "evidence" of not having seen them, but I find it hard to believe that any random sample of humanity would not contain a significant representation of group (c).
Richard
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Post by Rob Hutchinson on Sept 14, 2012 12:58:33 GMT
Richard
to make any sort of financial gain for the episodes in your category (c) these collectors would have to make their existence known. they haven't - so i think this scenario is highly unlikely. if there are anymore episodes out there then your scenario (b) is the most likely. i also think PV is hinting that he thinks this is the most likely avenue also?
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Post by Richard Tipple on Sept 14, 2012 13:28:50 GMT
Paul Do you have a list of missing eps that were potentially returned fron Oz in '75? It sounds like you are saying that all of these are potentially in the hands of collector(s)? I'd like Paul to clarify this too. It might make me change my opinion on the likelihood of future returns. |
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Post by Rob Moss on Sept 14, 2012 13:50:38 GMT
Let's assume that a fairly large consignment of episodes was returned from Aus in 1975. The fact that a couple of them survived is no indicator that any more of them did. It could be that someone was passing, saw a pile of Docter 'Oo films in the skip, thought it might be an idea to grab a couple, then left the rest to be taken away to landfill the next day.
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Richard Develyn
Member
Living in hope that more missing episodes will come back to us.
Posts: 565
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Post by Richard Develyn on Sept 14, 2012 13:50:57 GMT
Richard to make any sort of financial gain for the episodes in your category (c) these collectors would have to make their existence known. they haven't - so i think this scenario is highly unlikely. I think group (c) will make its presence known when they're ready to sell. I think the last thing they would do is make their existence known otherwise. Richard |
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Post by Rob Hutchinson on Sept 14, 2012 14:05:42 GMT
Richard to make any sort of financial gain for the episodes in your category (c) these collectors would have to make their existence known. they haven't - so i think this scenario is highly unlikely. I think group (c) will make its presence known when they're ready to sell. I think the last thing they would do is make their existence known otherwise. Richard c'mon lets think about it. when is the right time for them to make their presence known? how long are they going to hang on to them? the episodes are not going to get anymore valuable than they are now! there's no commonsense argument for anyone to hang on to a lost episode for profitable gain because the list of missing eps would have to considerably lessen for their episodes to have any substantial increase in monetary value. |
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Richard Develyn
Member
Living in hope that more missing episodes will come back to us.
Posts: 565
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Post by Richard Develyn on Sept 14, 2012 14:27:39 GMT
c'mon lets think about it. when is the right time for them to make their presence known? ... That is up to them, and their "common sense" argument might be different to yours. I think that they're out there, because I think we would have been very lucky if all the episodes to have fallen into private hands had fallen into *benevolent* private hands. Like I said, time will tell. Richard |
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Post by Rob Hutchinson on Sept 14, 2012 14:32:21 GMT
Let's assume that a fairly large consignment of episodes was returned from Aus in 1975. The fact that a couple of them survived is no indicator that any more of them did. It could be that someone was passing, saw a pile of Docter 'Oo films in the skip, thought it might be an idea to grab a couple, then left the rest to be taken away to landfill the next day. Paul is sometimes selective with the information he releases to us and with good reason. But in his first post he states that most of the eps returned from collectors can be sourced to bbc employees. reading between the lines (and he can correct me if i'm wrong) it sort of suggests the paul burnett episodes can also be traced back to a bbc employee. it seems likely to me that if you were responsible for saving 2 episodes (from australia) from junking and selling them to a collector you may have done the same with others to different collectors? |
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Post by Neil Megson on Sept 14, 2012 15:00:51 GMT
Maybe film collectors haven't got any more episodes from Australia - but are there any video recordings out there ? Or from Singapore in the early 1970s ? I'm sure this has been tried, but maybe there may be some results by advertising in electronics hobby magazines in Australia - "did you have a video recorder in 1970 ? Do you still have any tapes from it ?" It seems that the very early adopters of home video technology were more interested in electronics than film - perhaps there's a box of old reels in the attic somewhere ? (Note : I am aware that no episodes have ever been recovered from home video  ) |
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Post by Rob Moss on Sept 14, 2012 15:38:43 GMT
it seems likely to me that if you were responsible for saving 2 episodes (from australia) from junking and selling them to a collector you may have done the same with others to different collectors? I think you may be overestimating the number of film cans one person could practically smuggle out without being detected! Much though I hope there was a light-fingered employee with massive pockets, it may well be that two cans was all they reasonably get away with. I think Francis Watson just hid two, didn't he..? Do we know whether those just happened to be the two prints he chose to take, or were they just the only two there..? |
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Post by Michael D. Kimpton on Sept 14, 2012 16:41:29 GMT
it seems likely to me that if you were responsible for saving 2 episodes (from australia) from junking and selling them to a collector you may have done the same with others to different collectors? I think you may be overestimating the number of film cans one person could practically smuggle out without being detected! Much though I hope there was a light-fingered employee with massive pockets, it may well be that two cans was all they reasonably get away with. I think Francis Watson just hid two, didn't he..? Do we know whether those just happened to be the two prints he chose to take, or were they just the only two there..? From what I understand, he was handed only those two with instructions to junk them, but he held onto them in case they'd be useful in the future. Turns out he was right. |
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Post by Rob Hutchinson on Sept 14, 2012 17:13:06 GMT
I think you may be overestimating the number of film cans one person could practically smuggle out without being detected! Much though I hope there was a light-fingered employee with massive pockets, it may well be that two cans was all they reasonably get away with. I think Francis Watson just hid two, didn't he..? Do we know whether those just happened to be the two prints he chose to take, or were they just the only two there..? From what I understand, he was handed only those two with instructions to junk them, but he held onto them in case they'd be useful in the future. Turns out he was right. dunno, i may be late coming to the discussion. is francis watson the person who supplied paul burnett? if so, then you are of course correct. the junking process never seems very methodical to me. why just 2 random prints? if the whole story was deemed no longer commercially viable why not the whole story? as an auditor i would have been asking some searching questions about the bbc's systems and procedures at the time. but probably best that i wasn't, otherwise we wouldn't have the few returns that we have now!  |
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Post by Paul Vanezis on Sept 14, 2012 17:19:13 GMT
Ok all,
Rob Moss is right of course, that there is no guarantee that anything else could turn up from the batch of material that came back from Australia in 1975.
What I'm saying is that this recent discovery opens up the possibility that material could still be out there (as evidenced by the recent returns) and that material from that batch has turned up before. Therefore, it's reasonable to conclude that it's possible more material may be out there. I'm not saying that I know there is, nor am I hinting that there may be other things from Australia, and I'm most certainly not hinting that there's a group of collectors out there waiting to cash in; that's ridiculous!
But what it does tell us (and I think I should thank Damian Shanahan for providing the information about what was sent back) is that the paperwork trail is in most cases correct. Material was returned in 1975. We know what it is so we know we won't be finding that material in Australia. Other material we know was destroyed and whilst some of that has turned up elsewhere it's because people took things out of skips.
What is clear is that some material from that batch ended up with private collectors and some ended up back in the BBC for whatever reason. Maybe the censored print of 'The Dominators' - 5 was one of those sent to be junked but returned anonymously by my Enterprises contact? It's certainly possible. What I'm certain of is that more material could turn up from that batch.
Paul
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Post by John Wall on Sept 14, 2012 17:24:21 GMT
I'm not convinced that there are many, if any, of Group (c) around.
Let's think it through:
If you know that you've got something that's potentially valuable then what makes it valuable ? Basically, something is worth what somebody's prepared to pay for it. There are plenty of reels of film out there, and every so often one containing something missing turns up. However, there are hours and hours of missing stuff that turns up that is of interest but few would pay through the nose for it.
If you're in Group (c) then you might well be a lurker on this forum, or elsewhere. You'd certainly be aware of how much prints of existing episodes sell for and have an idea what an episode of Power, Evil, or TP4 would fetch on Ebay. You'd be aware that even an episode of a not particularly well regarded, but missing, Hartnell or Troughton would raise a tidy sum. Importantly, you'd know that Auntie wouldn't take any action against you.
However, you'd also be aware that lots of people are combing the globe looking for missing material and, in particular, the good Doctor.
Imagine someone from Group (c) who, hypothetically, happened to have a print of either "Airlock" or UM2 and went to MBW at the end of last year. What they'd been hoarding for the proverbial rainy day suddenly became worthless.
So, anybody in Group (c) would imho be well advised to progressively realise their value.
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