Page 12 - RD Reel Deals

8 Tonnes of Fun ….. Well at first anyway !
Mike Trickett

The following article is written without identifying the persons involved – as they say in the classics
“the names have been changed to protect the innocent”.
A few years ago, following the death of a well known collector, who I shall refer to as “M”, I was
contacted by a member of his family asking if I was interested in buying M’s film collection; the catch
was it was in a small country town, some 2-3 hours away. I was provided with a rough list of the
collection, it having been catalogued for the purpose of selling it.
A few calculations on the overall weight of the collection based on an average of 2kg per 16mm reel
and 5kgs per 35mm reel – came up with in excess of 6 tonnes in weight – and that did not take into
account things like cans, cases, etc.
I was quite interested, as the collection on offer contained many gems, and of course the usual (like
my collection, anyway) stuff that you just cant give away.
The cost to hire a 6 tonne enclosed truck, plus the cost per kilometre of the round trip was obtained. I
also added in the wage costs of a staff member from my work, as I estimated it would take quite some
time to load the truck and being an old bugger, I thought some youth to assist would not go astray.
My offer was subsequently accepted and a day suitable to all parties was arranged. An early morning
departure from Geelong got us to the location at about 9.00. On board the truck with me was my Step
Son Troy, who works with me as a technician, and of course Barb. There was no way she would allow
herself to be left behind on a trip like this!

The seller had also arranged for some friends to assist with the loading of the truck, shortly after 9.00
we started loading – we finally managed to say we had it all on board at about 1.00 – and that was
after the several times we thought we had it all loaded, only to find yet more films in another hiding
place.
The films were stored in two old shops, which consisted of the retail areas, as well as a residence and
out buildings. I can honestly say that there was not one room or shed that did not contain film – there
was film in the kitchen, film in the bathroom (even in the bath) and of course there was film in the toilet
– I have visions of M sitting there on the toilet holding up a reel of film and checking it for colour or
splices!
I had held a Heavy Vehicle Driver’s Licence for a few years, but my experience had mainly been in
driving 25 seater buses on CATHS tours. The big truck was easy to drive when it was empty, but now
on the return trip, with a full (and I mean really full) load on board, it became a different story, every hill
meant multiple gear changes and of course stopping was somewhat more difficult to achieve as well.
We arrived back in Geelong mid afternoon, I backed the truck up my drive and opened the garage
door to reveal the recently cleaned out and tidied-up garage. Some hours later, the garage was full of
film, my attempts to stack films in an orderly manner were defeated by the time constraints to get the
truck back to Avis before incurring an extra day’s charges.

Of course over the next couple of nights, I couldn’t resist having a ‘play with my new toys’ as Barb put
it. The work of sorting out the mess started the following weekend. Some basic sorting, like 35mm in
one area and 16mm in another was the starting point. No real attempt to check anything at this time,
just sort out with the intention of listing it at a later date.
After a couple of weekends of work, I had managed to catalogue some of it; I had even succumbed to
the temptation to run a few reels. I could not resist screening the 16mm prints of White Christmas,
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