If you’ve got a box full of old slides, it’s understandable that you may not know exactly what treasure pile of memories you may be sitting on – ready to digitize. After all, who knows what kind of camera grandpa was using to record those old memorable moments back in his heyday.
But alas, we can help!
Although our digitization facility only has the proper equipment to convert standard 35mm slides, we can help you identify if the slides in your old dusty shoe box fit the bill. The last thing we want you to do is package everything up and send it in for digitization only to have it sent back because we couldn’t help you out.
So, bust out that stockpile of old slides because we’re about to break down what to look for when identifying your old slides.
Standard 35mm slide vs 35mm half frame slides
A standard 35mm slide has a paperboard slide mount of 2” x 2” with a transparency film size of 24mm x 36mm. If you compare that to the half frame slide, you’ll notice that the slide mount is the same but the transparency film size has much smaller dimensions at 18mm x 24mm. Most slides should be stamped with manufacturer identifying information.
Kodak’s 126 slide vs 127 slide
Noting the difference between a standard 35mm slide from a half slide is pretty straightforward. But to add to the mix, Kodak created the 126 slide in 1963 to complement its 127 slide which was produced from 1912 to 1995. And while the 126 slide and 127 slide sound similar, they couldn’t look more different. Both have a 2” x 2” slide mount but the 126 slide has a perfect square transparency size of 28mm x 28mm while the 127 has a much larger square transparency of 40mm x 40mm.
The Superslide
Who would have thought there were so many slide variations? But that’s why we’re here to help you ID what slides you’ve got, if you’ve got a collection. In addition to the 127 slide above, they produced a Superslide with the same 2” x 2” mount but with a transparency that nearly filled the entire 2” x 2” frame. However, there’s a strong chance you don’t possess any of these slides in your personal collection because most of the time these are only seen in tourist-purchased or postcard slides, rarely in personal images.
Battle of the 110s
Starting in 1972, the 110 slide made its debut and came in a couple different formats. One was a 2” x 2” slide mount with a small transparency size of 13mm x 17mm. But a smaller version of the 110 was also created that had the same transparency size but only a 1” x 1” slide mount. These half size 110 slides are quite rare, so it’s probably safe to assume that you don’t have any in your collection.
If you've got standard 35mm slides in your possession, package them up in one of our pre-paid mail-in kits and sit back as we digitize them with care. The best part about a digital copy? No projector required.
