Eastman Museum Aquires 1888 Kodak Film

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Carl Hall

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I've just been reading about this and found it pretty interesting, so I thought I would share it :)

The Eastman Museum in Rochester, NY, has obtained the only known roll of 1888 Kodak film, and one of only three known rolls of 1889 Kodak transparency film. Bought from eBay!!

A quote from their website:

Introduced in 1888, the Kodak camera sold for $25, including factory-loaded film to take one hundred 2½-inch-diameter circular pictures. After the photographs were taken, the still-loaded camera was returned to Rochester, New York, and for a fee of $10, the film was developed, prints made, and a new roll of film inserted before the camera was sent back to its owner. The company adopted the slogan “You press the button, we do the rest”—penned by George Eastman—and Kodak snapshots became a cultural phenomenon.
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There's also a bit on The Atlantic, which has more photos.

The original ebay ad is here but make sure you're sat down before you see the price...

I don't know what month in 1888 it's from, but if it was before March then it's over 100 years older than me! :O
 
holy crap !
 
Possibly after March; I was curious as to the exact date of introduction and found this article which states that George Eastman patented "the original box camera" on September 4th 1888. He invented film (according to the same site) some three years earlier, presumably leaving the film in the same state as Alexander Graham Bell, who, after inventing the telephone had to wait until someone invented another before being able to call anyone on it :D.

More seriously, if this patent was for the 1888 camera, it seems remarkably fast work to get it into production in the same year. And I do appreciate the obvious point about film...
 
did they have freezers back then? would be a shame if its unusable ;)
 
Would be interesting to see what the results were like though!
 
Carl Hall said:
I'm just glad it went into a museum, and not the grubby hands of some rich hipster kid that would actually try and use it!
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Probably just as well it didn't end up with me, I'd be soooooo tempted to unwrap it, then bust it open, then soup the film.
 
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