Provides Dates to Kodak Slides
Everyone has boxes or carousels filled with family slides. A photo slide is a specially mounted individual transparency intended for projection onto a screen using a slide projector. This allows the photograph to be viewed by a large audience at once. Taking slides instead of print photos was very popular for years, especially in the 1940s with the 35 mm slide film introduced in 1935. It offered an entertaining method of sharing a family trip, special occasion, a celebration, etc that everyone could view at the same time on a large screen. The most common form is the 35 mm slide, with the image framed in a 2×2 inch cardboard or plastic mount. Yet it could prove to be difficult to date even within a few years some of these slides.
Yet if you examine the back of each slide and group them and compare with the chart of 35MM Kodachrome slides processed by Kodak, you can narrow down the years. For example, the back design for slides 1941-1949 have a red border, then tan shade and just the words ‘Kodachrome’ on the top and bottom. But if the back is all white, not red border and had ‘Kodachrome II” and “transparency’ and processed by Kodak then that is 1961 and 1962 style. Some slide back design only had slight printing font changes, so look close.
You will also want to convert your slides to digital format. There are many different slide scanners, many that also will scan negative film. There are many models of such scanners and at different price points. Check out what is available in your local photo shops or online with Amazon and eBay. After you learn how to operate the scanner you might be able to 200 plus slides in a couple of hours. Now you would have a permanent digital collection that can be shared on a disc or flash drive.
If you didn’t want to bother doing the scanning yourself, there are locations that scan the slides for you, that run about $25 for 40 slides or $30 for 50 slides. So if you do have many carousels of slides you will want to invest in your own scanner.
Photos: Dating the Kodak slides; holder for 1940s slides; holder for 1950s slides and the slide carousels.
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