Another year just about over and looking back at my purchases it was much better than expected bearing in mind for the first 6 months the country had a lot of restrictions.
purchases we made included,

A fish called Wanda, full theatrical print on 16mm,
Gorky Park, theatrical print, 16mm
Paint your wagon, slightly shortened version, Scope 16mm Agfa or LPP
Battle of the Bulge, Scope low fade 16mm
Red River, 16mm feature,
The Kentucky Fried Movie, 16mm low fade feature,
Uncle Buck, theatrical print, 16mm
Low Fade full trailer to the Warriors and many more trailers, 16mm

On Super 8
Jurassic Park, 600ft, a reluctant purchase due to cost, but pleased i did.
Ace Ventura, When Nature Calls trailer
predator trailer
Total Recall trailer
Patriot games trailer
Crimson tide trailer
Christmas Advert Reel
Gangs of New York Trailer
Half a sixpence trailer
Highlander trailer
Ghostbuster scope trailer
Shindlers list trailer
The Mask Trailer
The Truman Show trailer
Titanic trailer Scope
Dog Day Afternoon,

Clearly the 8mm side has slowed right down for us as we continue to sell off older films we have in order to get better quality, uncut feature on 16mm.
There are still a few titles we would like to get on 8mm including Commando, predator and a few others but as these are desirable titles i suspect they will either never turn up, or the price tag will be way above what i am prepared to pay.
As i enter my 60th birthday within the next three months i am unsure what we will do next, obviously if something really good comes along i will get it all being well, but 8mm will continue to be reduced, while i am looking to add a few more titles.

I have kept a tag on what we have sold over the last five years and to our surprise i have let go 218, 8mm titles, (including trailers) and seventeen 16mm films. The later goes back to the earlier years when i decided to sell off all my 16mm films, a decision i later regretted.

These sales also go to show that if i decided to keep everything and never sell a thing, we would now have over 700 titles on 8 and 65 16mms. Far too many to be able to view sensibly and far too many to just keep on a shelf with a low probability of watching the same film more than once. THATS, when it becomes a very expensive hobby and the owner becomes a hoarder rather than a collector.

I have been reading comments from some collectors elsewhere, (not on forums) regarding "collectors" who buy to sell for profit. Personally, i dont see why this is a problem. 90% of what i sell is films i have owned for many many years, the other 10% is a film i have bought and been dissapointed with so i move it on, if it trebles in price then its a win win for me so i can use the dosh to buy more films. Or they are films i have bought that i already have and i am keeping the better of the two prints. Most of my sales, thanks to sensible and HONEST listings have done ok, some i have lost a little money on and a couple have been lost by the useless cretins at Hermes, a company i will never use again, but selling to fund the hobby in my view is a sensible thing to do. There are a couple of titles i wish i kept but our 8mm collection is still too large for what i want and for those critics who keep banging on about "collectors who buy just to make a profit are not true collectors", all i can say is, if you want to give me your cash so i keep buying endlessly then please do so, otherwise come up with a better suggestion for such an expensive hobby. Most of what we move on hopefully makes another collector happy after we have probably had it for decades.
Once films start to fade they lose that viewing pleasure for us as we remember viewing those movies with great colours.

There are still also a lot of people moaning about high prices fetched on ebay, i do notice that many of those people do use ebay themselves to sell and buy. Funny that, i suspect they get upset because it sold more than they wanted to pay.
Any high prices my films may sell for are not set by me on my listings, i start with a sensible price, what they go up to is down to those who wish to pay the price for what they want, long may it continue. If you are a seller, start off with a sensible price, list honestly and you should be rewarded, if your a buyer avoid the greedy sods who start off with a high price, keep the description as vague as possible and use nice colour images copied and pasted off the net instead of screenshots from the film your bidding on. I can never understand the people who bid on those listings unless of course they end up going really cheap in which case a gamble could pay off.

In 2022 we will continue to move prints on so we can add new titles, hopefully the ratio of 10 sells to one buy will continue to bring the collection down to less quantity and more quality. Unfortunatly, the year ahead is as uncertain as the last year was so it'll be a week by week year.

All the best to you all.

For some 2021 was a horrendous year, my thoughts are with those good friends.

Tom,

Those are some impressive features to add to the Photiou collection...Definitely some great trailers as well. I fully agree with you on the benefits of managing the collection more closely. I am guessing that most collectors add more titles overall than they sell on a year to year basis. The film stacks will of course continue to grow then. I am guilty of that myself. Right now, I do have a couple piles of films that will go up for sale in early 2022. No major titles that will bring big dollars, but even twenty to thirty films sold at $25 to $45 each, will add up to have a bit of film cash at the ready--especially if one can avoid eBay and all the sick fees involved now.

During an informal chat with several others at Blackpool this past November, your approach to selling some titles from the current collection to buy new titles and thereby fund the hobby more responsibly came up. All of us agreed how much sense that makes.

Ok, here is something from the "Be careful what you wish for" department: I was just thinking about the nice new titles that are available now from Dave Films and Steve Osborne, and how realistically speaking, most of us simply can not afford to get each and every new title, even if we so desired, due to the cumulative cost. These new titles are great and I am not intending any criticism regarding the prices as it simply is what it is--economic reality. But, for a moment, just think if Derann, DCR, Red Fox, Lone Wolf, Kempski, etc. etc. were STILL operating today and cranking out new prints! Can you even imagine how difficult it would be to be able to afford the hobby with an even larger selection of new titles than we are currently grateful to have? (Of course, other variables would also be at play in that scenario such as possibly reduced print costs due to higher volumes etc. etc.)....but it is interesting to consider while day dreaming I guess...

As far as selling prints and making money: None of us are operating as any type of 'charity' to sell films at a certain price. It is simply the way things work in a capitalist economy. Now, I am not talking about ripping people off, because personal ethics and values are extremely important. As you said Tom, as long as we list the items honestly and with pictures from the actual print, if the price goes up due to open bidding, then how is that any type of blemish on the seller? Maybe I don't understand what the point was from the person who had issues with the high prices. None of us like to pay a high price for ANYTHING, films and otherwise, but at the same time when we are selling we certainly welcome a few extra bucks coming our way. It works both ways--sometimes to our advantage and sometimes not.

As far as 2021 goes, I also had a good year picking up some titles in both 16 and Super 8: Beauty and the Beast, Commando, Hannie Caulder, Man in the Wilderness, Lion King, two nice Flintstones episodes, a couple of B/W features, a few more Christmas shorts (for next year's holiday show), and some other miscellaneous shorts and cartoons. More importantly though, met some great people at Blackpool, enjoyed working on Eivind's Super 8 Database throughout the year, and our family has managed to stay healthy for the most part. Here is hoping that 2022 is healthier and enjoyable for everyone....

Thanks Greg, i am pleased you got Beauty and the Beast, i know its one you were looking for.
Along with Commando and the others, you have added some very good titles to your collection.

Its a good point you make regarding what it may be like if all the companies were still around producing new titles and how could we afford to keep up with it.
While i am grateful, (up to now) to have held steady employment, i was never a big earner, so even in the hey days of Derann, Walton and other firms, every month those second hand lists would come out alongside the main leaflets advertising all the new releases, i so wanted many of them but could never afford it, so i guess its a similar thing now with all the latest releases, how nice it must be for the wealthy of the hobby, BUT, we are very very happy and grateful for all the films and equipment we have.

Going back to ebay, i wonder what the value of our films would be now if it never existed, i was a huge critic in its early days but i think it has opened the hobby to many new people over the years and also allows collectors a much bigger buying platform. I for one thought that once Derann closed, the value of our films would sink, it's now gone the other way. It wont last forever and i am sure there will be a time when the prices do start to fall. Unfortunatly, there will always be clowns on ebay who are clueless and start bidding prices at ridiculously high asking, but i think these are only a few. 80% of what is on ebay as far as films are concerned is junk but the good ones are there, i bought my Shindlers list recently on ebay and the price was very good as was the trailer itself.
As a matter of interest, i was reading the thread regarding the age of collectors on the other channel. I was surprised how many people did state their age but clearly there are very few young people in the hobby.
Derek Simmonds sadly passed away in 2002, almost 20 years ago. At that time i would say that our hobby still had huge collector numbers. Since then many others have left the hobby and sold up, in some cases for a very sad reason.
Looking at the ages listed on the forum, is it really feasible to think that in another 15/20 years our hobby will still be going the way it is? I will be very surprised. I am not wishing to put a damper on it but that thread was actually quite a read and made us think about where we will be ourselves with film collecting in even 10 years.
We are in it until such time our equipment gives up and can no longer be put right, without the equipment you can have all the films in the world but they would be useless.
Anyway, bollocks to all that grim stuff,

For 2022 i will be looking out for,

16mm 80s and 90s action/comedy
Scrooged
National lampoons xmas vacation

8mm
will update later