Frankfurt, Germany, Dec. 5, 1949: Pfc. Leonard Schultz (left) lifts a heavy postal sack onto the scale as Pfc. James T. Parsons checks the scale to note its weight at the 26th Base Post Office. Stacks of yet to be weighed postal sacks can be seen in the foreground.

The image here is one of eleven recently digitized by Stars and Stripes’ archives team. The original negative that this image was captured on suffers from a preservation issue called “silvering,” where the silver particles rise to the top of the gelatin layer of the film.

During a preservation survey of Stripes’ photo collection in 2018, archives staff found that especially the 4x5 negatives from the late 1940s and early 1950s were suffering the most from this preservation issue. As the “silvering” will eventually cause the image captured on the negative to fade, the affected negatives were pulled and prioritized for scanning.

October is Archives Month, so keep your eye out for more treasures from the Stars and Stripes Archives on the Archive Photo of the Day pages. Have a question for our archivist? Submit it here! https://www.stripes.com/contact/archives/