The sexy and very busty Hyldagarde (Hilde Beck) from a restored 35mm colour slide sent over by Kevin. This slide comes from the later Harrison Marks slide sets produced later in the 1960’s and this particular slide comes from set No.41 of Hyldagarde on the Egyptian set.
Which brings me on to the subject of GHM’s colour slides (and others) and if they are worth buying? Slide sets of his models pop up on eBay all the time and range anywhere from anything up to £100 per set, depending on the size of the set and model in question. But nearly all of them when you look at the images are completely red or a faded magenta colour as they have over the years lost their original colouring. Yes, the models are clear and we mustn’t forget that these sets are over 50 years old, but would you really pay £100 for a set of faded red slides? I suppose it also depends on what you want them for, to complete a collection, then in that case it may well be worth it, but anything other than that seems to me to be a waste of money!
Please, this is just my own honest opinion from my view of the world and yes in the past I have paid over the odds for slide sets because they were June Palmer or some other model I liked regardless of the redness to the slides. I buy them to scan for this site and try and restore them, but nearly always they are so red there is little chance of recovering the colour, other than converting the images to black and white. There are exceptions, as some slide sets seem to have survived better over the years than others and Hyldagarde above is a fair example of some colour remaining. It also seems that the colour in GHM’s original Pamar slide sets seem to survive much better than his later sets, maybe better quality production back in the late 1950’s?
Regardless of this fact, faded or red if they are Harrison Marks slides they continue to sell whatever condition. Finally, would I pay £100 for a set of non faded, non red Harrison Marks slides in good condition? Probably as it is Harrison Marks 🙂
