Regarding the pre-print used for Blackhawk Laurel and Hardys, this is my understanding:

Blackhawk prints from the late 60's/early 70's were usually identical to the second generation Film Classics prints, which were made from 16mm negatives (which were made from their 35mm negatives). The negatives were remade in the 70's, often from MGM materials and were vast improvements. The early Blackhawks actually have Film Classics titles and are basically dupes.

I have at least one Blackhawk with Film Classics titles, but it does not look like a dupe at all. I have many with Blackhawk white-on-black titles and these are excellent, too.

Specifically, I have been told that the Blackhawk SONS OF THE DESERT prints come from a Film Classics 16mm original print, which would make it a dupe. I do not have this title in 16mm, but I do have a Super 8 copy from Blackhawk.

I do have a mid-70s WAY OUT WEST with Blackhawk titles (not the original titles with Leo air-brushed out) that is stunning, and I was told that it was made from the MGM materials as mentioned above.

Does anyone have any more information on this?

Thanks

I will need to check out Laurel and Hardy's as we were considering reducing the number we have. I know there is a few Blackhawk prints among them but none of them stick out as being outstanding. One being Sons of the Desert, one of our favourites, the image is ok but the problem is on reel two where, in the sourced material, not our print, there is a white line which i find very annoying. I'll update this thread as and when we view them in the coming weeks/months.

Reduce the number you have of L&H? I only sell a L&H if I have more than one of the title -- and I actually have 5 copies of one title -- some in Super 8 and some in 16mm, lol.

I have almost everything that was ever released for home use in one gauge or another - and some in 16mm never released for home use. They're my favorites.

Thats a lot of film by the sound of it.
I think i've got to an age where I want to limit the size of our collections, we only have 27 L&H titles and one on 16 but when i look at how often we are projecting them, we've decided to reduce the collections so we have quality instead of quantity.
I am really enjoying 16mm of late and like many collectors, i went through of stage of just buying up all sorts of stuff on 8mm, if the price was a bargain i bought it. This resulted in shelves full of stuff I would rarely view, or worse, viewed it and wondered why i bought it. This is when a hobby turns to hoarding.

I always enjoy a good L&H but am not generally a big fan of the silent or early sound cinema. We are not rushing to sell off a lot of films but my rule of thumb has been for every ten titles i sell i buy one or two replacements preferably on 16mm.
Aside a few digests on super 8 the only titles i would really like to gain is predator, Die hard 3 and platoon but these do tend to sell for such sums of money, it goes beyond my principle to pay it out for a movie. I'm happy with to pay a good price but not an insane price.
To put things into perspective, over the last few years we have sold 268 8mm films of all lengths including trailers, but still have 368 titles and 131 trailers and promos so we are still way over what we wish to keep, but we enjoy the hobby as much now as we always have.

Well, since I've been collecting L&H for almost 50 years it's really not that much. :)

The duplicate titles are mostly when upgrading from Super 8 to 16mm, though I have often sold the smaller gauge after acquiring the larger one -- but that was long ago before the prices bottomed out for L&H in Super 8. It's just not worth the hassle to sell a L&H 2-reeler and perhaps pocket $10 after the fees, etc.

Also, many times sellers only sell in lots, so I've wound up with duplicates. Some refuse to break up a lot, and others sell individual reels of features, all listed simultaneously. Not just for L&H, though there is a chap now selling individual reels of some L&H features, but I believe they are Standard 8mm silent versions, anyway. If they were buy-it-now it would make some sort of sense (I think!), but when it's an auction, I just don't think they have any idea what the heck they are doing. I've seen sellers have 2 lots for sale -- and each had parts of the same feature! I wound up with just one reel of a feature that way, though I already had the full feature so it was just an add-in to what I was really buying the lot for.

The focus of my collection is L&H, Our Gang, Charley Chase, Buster Keaton, and Charlie Chaplin, with lots of other stuff thrown in. About 99% of everything is b&w.

I take it you've seen all/most of the L&H films? If not, I can easily recommend the keepers, and you can see just about all of them on youtube before you buy.