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Post by Jeff Haynes on Jan 9, 2014 0:48:59 GMT
I have no doubt that missing episodes are in the hands of private collectors, and they know what they have. I have no direct evidence of this, so please don’t start a new internet rumor, “97 Missing Episodes in Private Collection” But I am dealing with decades of life experience dealing with collectors of all sorts, and film collectors are the worse. For years I made a living selling comics, cards and toys and had a chain of stores in the USA, I’ve also been a Dr Who fan for over 30 years. Most collectors are normal people that have an interest in something, some are weird narcissistic (fill in the blank). I am now 56, I’ve collected comic books since before I could read. Back when I was a teenager our youth group at church went to a guy’s house, that one of the kids knew, for a movie night. Now remember this is mid 70’s, maybe about the time Betamax was starting, but no one had one yet. This guy was a film collector, about in his thirties. Now please remember this was a long time ago, and it was one night in my life, and honestly I was more interested in the girls there than anything else, but here’s what happened to the best of my memory. His basement was set up like a 1920’s movie palace. It was beautiful, one wall had a curtain, the opposite was a projection room with the small glass windows cut out to project through. When he started the show the curtains parted to reveal the screen as the lights dimmed. First he showed a couple of cartoons then a feature film, a horror, murder mystery with a ventriloquist dummy from the 50’s or 60’s. Afterwards he took a bunch of the guys into the projection room. The walls were selves, the type were you could store films vertically and they were pretty full of cans. He talked about collecting and I remember that his holy grail would be a Technicolor print of the Wizard of Oz. The conservation went to silent films, which is funny because at the time I had no interest in them at all, now they’re one of my major interests in life, hey, I must love stuff were a lot of it is missing. Anyway, he shows a can and mentions that it’s a lost film and may be the only copy in existence. In the conversation I asked him why he didn’t tell someone and basically he told us that that’s what collecting meant for him, the one of a kind, no one else has it. Then his body language turned to “ oops I said too much” and he changed the subject. Where is Rembrandt’s “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee”? It was stolen in 1990, where is it? No one can legally own it, no one can really tell anyone the have it. Where is it? Answer, a COLLECTOR has it. In their mind they have something unique and one of a kind and the hell with anyone else. What reason would a collector with this mindset have to return anything to the BBC?
When it comes to Dr Who none of us are omniscient. None of us were there. No one can know for certain what happened to every print in every place. People do not always tell the truth. It would just take one person in the right place in many different places, we just don’t know. About the time “The Lion” was found I was on a board on the Usenet. Someone who claimed to be on the restoration team became very hostile because of my posts that the BBC should offer rewards for lost episodes. At the time he guaranteed that no more episodes existed out there, The Lion could be explained, and that every other print of every other episode was accounted for and there would be no more recoveries. Was he right? No. As far as the rest, we just don’t know.
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Post by Neil Lambess on Jan 9, 2014 3:35:15 GMT
That certaintly scuppers my theory of someone going off with a box of film prints that they were supposed to destroy in the boot of their car. Still. We can dream eh? Why would they want them back in the 70s ? You're projecting back our values and imposing them on people who thought differently. TV was considered unimportant and ephemeral then. I was watching TV in the 70s and, other than films, we rarely had repeats. I missed, because of a power cut, the first episode of "Genesis" and didn't actually see it for years. Different story in NZ anything on 16mm was considered a very cool thing to own and project, and in the 70s 16mm was most definatly the VHS of its days..... collectors here swapped and traded with others, and the market was so large that the major companies had full fims on 16mm for rental and sale..... (including tv shows like the Avengers...) in fact just go through a 1970s edition of the UK editions of " films and filming "and check out the classifieds to see just how many retailers,and studios were legally selling FULL or cutdown 16mm and 8mm prints to the general public.... and also to see how much stuff private collectors were swapping or selling.......! yes it was a enthusiasts market , it was smaller than the VHS market , but it was also considerably larger than most people think..... |
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Post by Neil Lambess on Jan 9, 2014 3:41:38 GMT
It may be wrong to suggest that someone is hoarding film cans in full knowledge. As secretary of a film society I am currently helping an elderly lady who has received tens of 16 mm films and mostly home movies plus a 16mm projector from her deceased brother in law. She has no idea exactly what she has or how to view it. From the list there is DEFINiTELY NO WHO! Or TV unless on the home movies. This is an example of how many missing films and TV could easily just be sitting in an attic- hence the BBC calls for people to head into the loft. FYI the movies are confirmed by BFI unwanted Chaplin and similar, however the South West arm of BfI are keen to see the home movies taken from 1930s to 1960s. You're totally right. The two episodes recovered in 2011 had been in a collection for several decades and the owner had no idea they were missing. which is something ive always found strange considering all the publicity the lion generated in 99 ,( national lotteries, newspapers, radios, etc etc....... it was even news on the front page of "the cedar rapids daily gazettee" ) so its amazing that he missed all the coverage.....  |
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Post by Neil Lambess on Jan 9, 2014 3:48:40 GMT
As was mentioned when Airlock and UWM2 turned up, these things tend to be found in pairs - 1 in each hand, taken by chancers. It wasn't systematic because, a) very few people had equipment to watch them on and had no foresight (like the beeb) to think they might be watchable at some indeterminate point in the future, and b) there was no pre-planning involved. If it was happening today, half this board would don their balaclavas and borrow their mate's white van for a midnight sortee. This clearly didn't happen, because NO ONE saw any monetary value in them. .
yet those midnight sorties DID happen in NZ in the 70s , following tip offs from insiders in the TV stations and thats EXACTLY how "the Lion " escaped......(along with serveral hundreds of other tv shows ) (and it wasnt due to monetary value it was due to the need to get new stuff to watch on their 16mm projectors......
it can and did happen !
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Post by johnforbes on Jan 9, 2014 5:25:57 GMT
@ those who think it's impossible that a collector can have a complete missing story in his collection.
Look at the number of missing stories for which NOTHING exists at all. Some of which are highly desireable.
There are a number of iconic stories in this category, POTD, Highlanders, Macra, Marco etc.
For all anyone knows, someone may also have TP4, along with TP1-3, etc
Possibly hundreds of thousands of prints were junked, (there are in excess of 1 million shows missing from the archives) some shows have nothing whatsoever left. The amount of Dr Who scheduled for junking, is a drop in the ocean of those many many thousands. That statistically so many have made it into the public/private domain is beyond any reasonable doubt that Doctor Who WAS taken simply because it was Doctor Who and not Crossroads etc.
The actual visual, while there, evidence of IL, shows that stories WERE junked as a complete unit. And it's just as easy to carry 4 film cans forward in both hands as it is to hold one in each hand.
American Comics were not meant to be collected. Just read and thrown away. People kept them and collected them anyway, even though they had no value at the time. Doesn't matter that you might not have a 16mm projector there and then when you take a beloved ep that is marked for destruction, it gives you the incentive to save up for one.
My primary school in Luton at the time, had a 16mm projector in the mid 70's, I don't know, maybe they were common in schools at that time to give the kids something to watch in bad weather etc or as a treat.
Some eps in the UK were on open sale in the early to mid 80's. That's knocking on for 10 years after they were supposedly destroyed. I can't for one minute imagine that episodes would NOT have been offered, and bought, before then. Or imagine that the ones recovered so far from non tv station sources are the ONLY ones that ever made it out.
Not all people are alike. A number of collectors of anything, enjoy knowing they have something utterly unique.
Based on factual evidence we know, statistical probability and human nature, I've no doubt whatsoever that more eps are in private hands and that some of those may well be entire stories.
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Post by John Wall on Jan 9, 2014 9:19:31 GMT
yet those midnight sorties DID happen in NZ in the 70s , following tip offs from insiders in the TV stations and thats EXACTLY how "the Lion " escaped......(along with serveral hundreds of other tv shows ) (and it wasnt due to monetary value it was due to the need to get new stuff to watch on their 16mm projectors......
it can and did happen !
Sheep get boring after a while..... |
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Post by John Wall on Jan 9, 2014 9:48:44 GMT
@ those who think it's impossible that a collector can have a complete missing story in his collection. Look at the number of missing stories for which NOTHING exists at all. Some of which are highly desireable. There are a number of iconic stories in this category, POTD, Highlanders, Macra, Marco etc. For all anyone knows, someone may also have TP4, along with TP1-3, etc Possibly hundreds of thousands of prints were junked, (there are in excess of 1 million shows missing from the archives) some shows have nothing whatsoever left. The amount of Dr Who scheduled for junking, is a drop in the ocean of those many many thousands. That statistically so many have made it into the public/private domain is beyond any reasonable doubt that Doctor Who WAS taken simply because it was Doctor Who and not Crossroads etc. The actual visual, while there, evidence of IL, shows that stories WERE junked as a complete unit. And it's just as easy to carry 4 film cans forward in both hands as it is to hold one in each hand. American Comics were not meant to be collected. Just read and thrown away. People kept them and collected them anyway, even though they had no value at the time. Doesn't matter that you might not have a 16mm projector there and then when you take a beloved ep that is marked for destruction, it gives you the incentive to save up for one. My primary school in Luton at the time, had a 16mm projector in the mid 70's, I don't know, maybe they were common in schools at that time to give the kids something to watch in bad weather etc or as a treat. Some eps in the UK were on open sale in the early to mid 80's. That's knocking on for 10 years after they were supposedly destroyed. I can't for one minute imagine that episodes would NOT have been offered, and bought, before then. Or imagine that the ones recovered so far from non tv station sources are the ONLY ones that ever made it out. Not all people are alike. A number of collectors of anything, enjoy knowing they have something utterly unique. Based on factual evidence we know, statistical probability and human nature, I've no doubt whatsoever that more eps are in private hands and that some of those may well be entire stories. This is getting close to desperation.... Unfortunately, based on what has been recovered from collectors - and there have been some found that exist in the archives - the best explanation for those ending up in private hands is the opportunistic magpie. It's the only way to explain why there doesn't appear to be more than about two from any collector - that's about the maximum an average person could walk off with. It's sometimes said that there are lies, damn lies and statistics.... There have been a few Dr Who's recovered over the years - but it's actually a very very small percentage of what made it into private hands and what's been subsequently recovered. Every year MBW shows a few hours of what's been recovered - from various sources - and there hasn't been much Dr Who shown (the only complete episodes appear to have been UM2 and Airlock) over the past 20 years. There have been all sorts of things, such as TDUDP and Z-Cars, recovered from collectors. If all of the non Dr Who were to be added up we'd get a better idea of just how significant, or otherwise, Dr Who is the greater scheme of things. In terms of recoveries from any source Dr Who must be considerably less than 1%. However, Dr Who is the highest profile search but, statistically, it's completely insignificant. Missing material is coming back from various sources almost on a weekly, if not daily, basis. I certainly believe that there may be more episodes in private hands - and some may be missing. However, based on the evidence of about 30 years these are most likely to be odd episodes, with a maximum of about two, from almost any story. It is not impossible that a collector might have a complete missing story - but the chances of this are so small as to not be worth betting a single brass farthing on. The best chance of recovering complete stories is foreign broadcasters. |
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Post by John Wall on Jan 9, 2014 9:56:38 GMT
I have no doubt that missing episodes are in the hands of private collectors, and they know what they have. I have no direct evidence of this, so please don’t start a new internet rumor, “97 Missing Episodes in Private Collection” But I am dealing with decades of life experience dealing with collectors of all sorts, and film collectors are the worse. For years I made a living selling comics, cards and toys and had a chain of stores in the USA, I’ve also been a Dr Who fan for over 30 years. Most collectors are normal people that have an interest in something, some are weird narcissistic (fill in the blank). I am now 56, I’ve collected comic books since before I could read. Back when I was a teenager our youth group at church went to a guy’s house, that one of the kids knew, for a movie night. Now remember this is mid 70’s, maybe about the time Betamax was starting, but no one had one yet. This guy was a film collector, about in his thirties. Now please remember this was a long time ago, and it was one night in my life, and honestly I was more interested in the girls there than anything else, but here’s what happened to the best of my memory. His basement was set up like a 1920’s movie palace. It was beautiful, one wall had a curtain, the opposite was a projection room with the small glass windows cut out to project through. When he started the show the curtains parted to reveal the screen as the lights dimmed. First he showed a couple of cartoons then a feature film, a horror, murder mystery with a ventriloquist dummy from the 50’s or 60’s. Afterwards he took a bunch of the guys into the projection room. The walls were selves, the type were you could store films vertically and they were pretty full of cans. He talked about collecting and I remember that his holy grail would be a Technicolor print of the Wizard of Oz. The conservation went to silent films, which is funny because at the time I had no interest in them at all, now they’re one of my major interests in life, hey, I must love stuff were a lot of it is missing. Anyway, he shows a can and mentions that it’s a lost film and may be the only copy in existence. In the conversation I asked him why he didn’t tell someone and basically he told us that that’s what collecting meant for him, the one of a kind, no one else has it. Then his body language turned to “ oops I said too much” and he changed the subject. Where is Rembrandt’s “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee”? It was stolen in 1990, where is it? No one can legally own it, no one can really tell anyone the have it. Where is it? Answer, a COLLECTOR has it. In their mind they have something unique and one of a kind and the hell with anyone else. What reason would a collector with this mindset have to return anything to the BBC? When it comes to Dr Who none of us are omniscient. None of us were there. No one can know for certain what happened to every print in every place. People do not always tell the truth. It would just take one person in the right place in many different places, we just don’t know. About the time “The Lion” was found I was on a board on the Usenet. Someone who claimed to be on the restoration team became very hostile because of my posts that the BBC should offer rewards for lost episodes. At the time he guaranteed that no more episodes existed out there, The Lion could be explained, and that every other print of every other episode was accounted for and there would be no more recoveries. Was he right? No. As far as the rest, we just don’t know. Nobody would disagree with you. However, there aren't even rumours of a collector with missing Dr Who for the sake of keeping it to themselves. |
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Post by shellyharman67 on Jan 9, 2014 10:26:52 GMT
If these people are keeping stumm and have told no one we will never know. Let alone a rumour starting ! They know what they have, of course they do. Making them cough up is another thing !
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Post by johnforbes on Jan 9, 2014 11:49:00 GMT
@ those who think it's impossible that a collector can have a complete missing story in his collection. Look at the number of missing stories for which NOTHING exists at all. Some of which are highly desireable. There are a number of iconic stories in this category, POTD, Highlanders, Macra, Marco etc. For all anyone knows, someone may also have TP4, along with TP1-3, etc Possibly hundreds of thousands of prints were junked, (there are in excess of 1 million shows missing from the archives) some shows have nothing whatsoever left. The amount of Dr Who scheduled for junking, is a drop in the ocean of those many many thousands. That statistically so many have made it into the public/private domain is beyond any reasonable doubt that Doctor Who WAS taken simply because it was Doctor Who and not Crossroads etc. The actual visual, while there, evidence of IL, shows that stories WERE junked as a complete unit. And it's just as easy to carry 4 film cans forward in both hands as it is to hold one in each hand. American Comics were not meant to be collected. Just read and thrown away. People kept them and collected them anyway, even though they had no value at the time. Doesn't matter that you might not have a 16mm projector there and then when you take a beloved ep that is marked for destruction, it gives you the incentive to save up for one. My primary school in Luton at the time, had a 16mm projector in the mid 70's, I don't know, maybe they were common in schools at that time to give the kids something to watch in bad weather etc or as a treat. Some eps in the UK were on open sale in the early to mid 80's. That's knocking on for 10 years after they were supposedly destroyed. I can't for one minute imagine that episodes would NOT have been offered, and bought, before then. Or imagine that the ones recovered so far from non tv station sources are the ONLY ones that ever made it out. Not all people are alike. A number of collectors of anything, enjoy knowing they have something utterly unique. Based on factual evidence we know, statistical probability and human nature, I've no doubt whatsoever that more eps are in private hands and that some of those may well be entire stories. This is getting close to desperation.... Unfortunately, based on what has been recovered from collectors - and there have been some found that exist in the archives - the best explanation for those ending up in private hands is the opportunistic magpie. It's the only way to explain why there doesn't appear to be more than about two from any collector - that's about the maximum an average person could walk off with. It's sometimes said that there are lies, damn lies and statistics.... There have been a few Dr Who's recovered over the years - but it's actually a very very small percentage of what made it into private hands and what's been subsequently recovered. Every year MBW shows a few hours of what's been recovered - from various sources - and there hasn't been much Dr Who shown (the only complete episodes appear to have been UM2 and Airlock) over the past 20 years. There have been all sorts of things, such as TDUDP and Z-Cars, recovered from collectors. If all of the non Dr Who were to be added up we'd get a better idea of just how significant, or otherwise, Dr Who is the greater scheme of things. In terms of recoveries from any source Dr Who must be considerably less than 1%. However, Dr Who is the highest profile search but, statistically, it's completely insignificant. Missing material is coming back from various sources almost on a weekly, if not daily, basis. I certainly believe that there may be more episodes in private hands - and some may be missing. However, based on the evidence of about 30 years these are most likely to be odd episodes, with a maximum of about two, from almost any story. It is not impossible that a collector might have a complete missing story - but the chances of this are so small as to not be worth betting a single brass farthing on. The best chance of recovering complete stories is foreign broadcasters. Never known such a non believer !! Utter desperation to deny absolutely everything that seems plausible, is the scenario you described in an earlier post about a random magpie turning up at the same time every single day, buses and tubes running unwaveringly to get them there, and seeing eps of Dr Who handily undamaged and sitting on top of a skip pile, no doubt the cans glistening in the sunlight to alert passers by to their presence. |
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Post by shellyharman67 on Jan 9, 2014 13:29:41 GMT
This is getting close to desperation.... Unfortunately, based on what has been recovered from collectors - and there have been some found that exist in the archives - the best explanation for those ending up in private hands is the opportunistic magpie. It's the only way to explain why there doesn't appear to be more than about two from any collector - that's about the maximum an average person could walk off with. It's sometimes said that there are lies, damn lies and statistics.... There have been a few Dr Who's recovered over the years - but it's actually a very very small percentage of what made it into private hands and what's been subsequently recovered. Every year MBW shows a few hours of what's been recovered - from various sources - and there hasn't been much Dr Who shown (the only complete episodes appear to have been UM2 and Airlock) over the past 20 years. There have been all sorts of things, such as TDUDP and Z-Cars, recovered from collectors. If all of the non Dr Who were to be added up we'd get a better idea of just how significant, or otherwise, Dr Who is the greater scheme of things. In terms of recoveries from any source Dr Who must be considerably less than 1%. However, Dr Who is the highest profile search but, statistically, it's completely insignificant. Missing material is coming back from various sources almost on a weekly, if not daily, basis. I certainly believe that there may be more episodes in private hands - and some may be missing. However, based on the evidence of about 30 years these are most likely to be odd episodes, with a maximum of about two, from almost any story. It is not impossible that a collector might have a complete missing story - but the chances of this are so small as to not be worth betting a single brass farthing on. The best chance of recovering complete stories is foreign broadcasters. Never known such a non believer !! Utter desperation to deny absolutely everything that seems plausible, is the scenario you described in an earlier post about a random magpie turning up at the same time every single day, buses and tubes running unwaveringly to get them there, and seeing eps of Dr Who handily undamaged and sitting on top of a skip pile, no doubt the cans glistening in the sunlight to alert passers by to their presence. There are some on here working for certain powers i believe ! Anything is possible. And all the Neg people are entitled to their view ! Unless they are working for others  |
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Post by John Wall on Jan 9, 2014 17:49:48 GMT
This is getting close to desperation.... Unfortunately, based on what has been recovered from collectors - and there have been some found that exist in the archives - the best explanation for those ending up in private hands is the opportunistic magpie. It's the only way to explain why there doesn't appear to be more than about two from any collector - that's about the maximum an average person could walk off with. It's sometimes said that there are lies, damn lies and statistics.... There have been a few Dr Who's recovered over the years - but it's actually a very very small percentage of what made it into private hands and what's been subsequently recovered. Every year MBW shows a few hours of what's been recovered - from various sources - and there hasn't been much Dr Who shown (the only complete episodes appear to have been UM2 and Airlock) over the past 20 years. There have been all sorts of things, such as TDUDP and Z-Cars, recovered from collectors. If all of the non Dr Who were to be added up we'd get a better idea of just how significant, or otherwise, Dr Who is the greater scheme of things. In terms of recoveries from any source Dr Who must be considerably less than 1%. However, Dr Who is the highest profile search but, statistically, it's completely insignificant. Missing material is coming back from various sources almost on a weekly, if not daily, basis. I certainly believe that there may be more episodes in private hands - and some may be missing. However, based on the evidence of about 30 years these are most likely to be odd episodes, with a maximum of about two, from almost any story. It is not impossible that a collector might have a complete missing story - but the chances of this are so small as to not be worth betting a single brass farthing on. The best chance of recovering complete stories is foreign broadcasters. Never known such a non believer !! Utter desperation to deny absolutely everything that seems plausible, is the scenario you described in an earlier post about a random magpie turning up at the same time every single day, buses and tubes running unwaveringly to get them there, and seeing eps of Dr Who handily undamaged and sitting on top of a skip pile, no doubt the cans glistening in the sunlight to alert passers by to their presence. Someone walking to the tube/bus/train in London at the end of each working day would almost certainly pass the same place at almost exactly the same time every day. If a large batch of returned Dr Who is being disposed of over several days there are likely to be random episodes waiting to be collected. You pick up a couple each time you pass and you've got exactly the pattern of episodes that have been recovered from private collectors. |
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Post by shellyharman67 on Jan 9, 2014 18:07:00 GMT
In theory yes to the bus and tube thing. But that is just speculation. We may never no for sure. But thats a fair summary of what might of happened.
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Post by John Wall on Jan 9, 2014 18:22:41 GMT
In theory yes to the bus and tube thing. But that is just speculation. We may never no for sure. But thats a fair summary of what might of happened. Unless we can trace the original "acquirer" of the prints we'll never be certain. We're talking about 1975/76. Several years before Ian Levine or Sue Malden turned up. DWAS started shortly afterwards. At that time virtually nobody knew that anything was missing and if they did, what was missing. There may have been other avenues for getting things out of the BBC as other material went "walkies". However, to postulate organised acquiring at that time is complete fantasy. |
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Post by shellyharman67 on Jan 9, 2014 18:27:03 GMT
Just been listening to this guys blog on the tube. And was right last time. He say that 64,000 Cans have been found and polo and smugglers for a FEB release ! And i dont want to start a rumour !
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