I have thousands of Kodachromes that tell a different story. Are you sure
they were processed by Eastman Kodak; many slides of that era were not. The
only Kodachromes in my collection that have problems are those not
processed by Kodak. Especially the Kodachromes that were processed by
Technicolor Labs; all or most are faded to magenta. Incidentally, most of
my old Ektachromes are faded to varying degrees. The only other slides that
have not are Agfachromes. If none of your slides dating to 1955 are good, I
suggest you have problems that are not to be attributed to Kodachrome. No
one else I know has this problem, and from other lists, I hear the same
thing....Kodachromes lasting the longest and still perfect. I also have
about 2500 early Kodachrome Viewmaster reels, perfect condition. And my
collection of Kodachrome Prints and sheet Kodachromes are still good. I
also collect Kodachrome Stereo Slides and I have yet to see any problems
here, either.
Color prints I
made in the 1950s into the 60s are largely gone (but better than
commercially made ones of the same period). There are no "original"
Polaroid pictures that are fit to be looked at.
This is to be expected. ALL of my Polaroids are bad, but Polaroid is hardly
an archival process. The only exception is P/N 4 X 5 stuff....still usable.
And commercially produced
BW prints from even 50 yrs ago are, for the most part, faded or fading
I worked for a the oldest photographic firm in Utah, and one of the oldest
Kodak Dealers in the USA. In the collection were tens of thousands of Glass
Plates, Nitrate based negatives, Cirkit rolls, and lots of other negative
materials. These images were not stored in the best of conditions, but are
perfect. No fading, either. Each envelope had a print made when the
negatives were processed. Still perfect. Here again, I think you might have
issues unrelated to the materials. Processing might be a suspect as well.
(I
do a lot of computer improvement on these for genealogical purposes). The
scientists can produce inks/dyes that have longer life, they are working on
it, and we should (a la Cibachrome/Ilfochrome) have pigments and dyes for
computerized printing that will be the equivalent or better than in
chemically produced color prints.
One day perhaps, not yet however.
Getting back to the Alt-Photo thing for a moment: I hope all those working
on color "carbon" prints are paying close attention to the mordanted dyes
they are using for the color: many water colors are not even as permanent
as the dyes used in color prints and computerized prints.
Very true, there is a considerable amount of variation here. Dye Transfer
prints are still very stable and materials are once again being offered.