WWII Photos with developing chemical smell - real or fake?

[WWIIBuff]

I have been collecting WWII photos for many years, and have thousands of photos in my collection. Based on my experience, original, period printed, WWII photos will not have any remaining odor of the chemicals used to develop them. In fact, they will typically have other distinct smells.

I think that 70 plus years is plenty of time for a photo to finish "out-gassing" their chemical odor, no matter where or how they may have been stored. In fact, I think 10 years would be plenty of time.

What do you guys think, have I been wrong about this all these years?

[byterock]

Quite correct there should be no off-gassing of 70+ old photo prints,

However if there are old negatives present they can off gas and decay basically for-ever and can become very unstable depends it it is 'Safety film' vs 'nitrate film'

Some non-archive colour films will off-gas as well .

Not saying that given war time conditions the correct chemicals for printing negatives may not been available and substitutes may have been used. If you have a large number of prints then a very small off-gas from many may be detectable.

This would be bad for you collection as any off-gassing may cause other photos to degrade.

Could also be coming from the storage system, I remember a large collection of prints that was destroyed because they where stored in the incorrect type of box that off gassed and caused the photos to degrade.

[WWIIBuff]

Thanks byterock.

No other opinions or experiences out there?

[12thPanzer]

I would say Byterock gave the best answer you will get, you shouldn't be getting any newly developed type of smell from your 70 yr old photos. Some photos DO smell though....whether it be musky or just odd, it depends on where it has been stored.
That being said, I have had some Death Cards/Sterbebilds with this smell, and it immediately raises alarms if I had not already known from touch/feel/look. Sometimes you just don't know until you get them in hand!