Do you know any film collectors?

[cosmichobo]

G'day,

Long shot of course... but... do any of you know any film collectors? Professional or amateur... Distant relative, friend of a friend, old man down the street...?

Is there even a chance that they may have a film print of a missing Doctor Who story?

As we thankfully discovered late last year, the missing episodes of Doctor Who are still turning up, after sitting in people's attics for decades...

For the sake of history and fandom, go and ask those collectors!

To recap... Doctor Who, like other shows of the time, were recorded on videotape... the BBC then transferred the episodes to film for archiving, as film was considered more "universal" for overseas sales, and was cheaper than video tape. Copies of the show were made from these master films to send overseas to countries like Australia, Hong Kong, etc. Meanwhile, as the BBC ran out of space/money for storage, they decided to destroy the film masters, seeing no future use for them.

After last year's recovery, 106 (25 minute) episodes remain missing from the BBC's archives.

In addition, during the Jon Pertween 1970-5 era, colour master prints were destroyed, whilst the b&w copies were retained. Whilst massive leaps have been made in recovering the colour, if you have any off-air recordings of Pertwee's stories (in colour), please check here to see if the episode/s are sought by the BBC...

Only way we're going to get these recovered is if we act before the people who may own them pass away, and their families decide to toss them all out!

cheers

cosmic