Yale Library's Purchase of Film at Swann in NYTimes

New York Times Antiques columnist Eve Kahn mentioned Swann Galleries' sale of film footage by the Rev. Solomon Sir Jones, a Baptist minister in Oklahoma, which sold for $57,600 in her recap of 2009 auctions.

"[Jones] filmed African-American towns in the 1920s while traveling to preach, focusing on prosperous business owners and eager students. Canisters with about six hours of his footage, which turned up in a Tulsa antiques dealer’s basement, sold for $57,600 on Feb. 26 at Swann Galleries in New York. (The estimate was $40,000 to $60,000.) The buyer, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale, is now creating a searchable index for the hundreds of brief scenes labeled with town and family names, and determining how to stabilize the celluloid."