How do you feel about garage sales? When we’re on the selling end, they can involve a ton of work. First we have to clean out our garages, then we have to put everything up on racks, tag it and display it nicely. If nobody buys us out, we have to put everything back. Still, shopping around at garage sales can be one of the most exciting and rewarding things we can do on any given weekend. As the old saying goes: “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”
And that was certainly the case for one man living in Essex, England.
That man was 70-year-old Greg Pack, a retired graphic artist.
Pack was at a car boot sale looking for old clocks when he came across something particularly interesting. While searching through a box, he saw an entire case of glass photographic negatives that were in great condition. Though he wasn’t sure what he would do with them, he paid about £4 for them and went on his way.
His plan was to try and develop the photographs at home on his own.
The box held 18 negatives, each of them relatively well-preserved.
After trying to scan them onto his computer and failing, he decided to take a new approach.
“I held the glass negative to the sky, took a picture with my iPhone,” he said. Once he had that part done, he was ready to work some magic in Photoshop. As it turns out, the process of reversing the negative image was simple as could be—and it resulted in a beautiful and mysterious series of family photographs.
This story came to the world because of Scott Pack, Greg’s son.
Because his father was so interested in unearthing the story behind all the photos, Greg decided to put the entire thing up on the internet for the world to see. More specifically, he took to Twitter:
My dad was at a boot sale recently and saw this battered old box. He is a fan of boxes, and boxes are made to be opened, so he did what most of us would do and peeked inside. pic.twitter.com/9pg3revsLF
— Scott Pack (@meandmybigmouth) August 20, 2018
The tweets showed an antique wooden box with the slides stacked neatly inside of it. While any clues to the identity of the people in the photos were scant, Scott and Greg noticed that there was a list inside the box that came with it.
Here is the list that was pasted into the lid of the box. All in English but with some French place names mentioned, we think. Could have been holiday photographs? Presumably a reasonably well-off family if so? Would love to find out more about them. Or even just date them. pic.twitter.com/sQzw4RhHtH
— Scott Pack (@meandmybigmouth) August 20, 2018
All of the photographs were particularly beautiful and striking…
And the internet seemed more than happy to chime in with their own feedback as well.
The uniform definitely appears to be first world war British at first inspection. The leg wrappings and shoulder bandolier are very distinctive.
— BundesCheega (@CarbineCat) August 21, 2018
Looks like late 19th or early 20th century. There was a Henri Auguste Mabille from Le Havre but he was born in 1910. His father's name was Auguste Raoul Mabille and his mother's name was Laure Marie Ternon.
— CJ 💜 4 Days (@smkndofpnutdssr) August 21, 2018
After piecing together clues from the photographs, the Packs and some journalists were able to figure out a few preliminary details.
Although the list was partially written in France, the photos themselves were more likely taken in England by an English family. Through close examination, one of the buildings in the background appeared to be an old photographer’s studio. Although the full story has yet to come out publicly, Greg was sure to share his heartfelt sentiments to his son to share with the world after seeing the viral reaction.
“Scott, not sure if it’s the way things are done on Twitter, but would you please pass on my gratitude to all your followers for the truly unbelievable response to these images.
For me, it’s the fact that these glass negatives have been in that box for over 100 years, the original photos from those negatives probably do not exist anymore, so when I turned the negatives to a positive image and looked at their faces, that was bringing those people and that day in their lives back to life for me, those seconds of exposure to the camera lens 100 years ago now visible again, and it seems to have captured the imagination of 20 million people.
…
These last three days have been truly surreal for me, BBC Breakfast, ITV News, Sky TV, Australian Channel 7 TV, iNews, the Times, French and Argentinian Newspapers, a live radio interview on the Irish Ray D’Arcy Show, seven different news agencies, it’s been picked up in Australia, India, The Emirates, France, USA, and many more countries it would seem.
So thank you to my son, Scott, & Twitter followers for making all this possible.
Greg Pack”
Stories like these capture our hearts and our minds so easily.
Looking back at the past always tends to fill us with wonder, but the personal aspect of the story takes it all to another level. Through happenstance, Greg stumbled across something that would become a worldwide obsession—and the truth about the photographs is likely to come out, eventually. Just take this as a lesson: the next time your dad invites you to go to a garage sale with him, you’d better go!
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