Air-Britain Colour Image Archive

Avro 685 York G-AG.. at Heathrow 1959 (JJ Halley/CS05130)

Air-Britain Colour Image Archive – Donations & bequests

The Air-Britain colour image archive is an extensive archive of slides and negatives used for producing images for journals and new monographs, and other future services for members.

We welcome all donations of any unwanted colour negatives or slides, though we cannot compete with individual or commercial buyers of photos. We aim to archive all images irrespective of subject and condition, in the expectation that future technologies will allow enhancements and better conservation of photographic artefacts.

Significant collections can be archived separately, as we have already done for several bequests such as that from the Stephen Piercey Collection.

We diligently research and record all details for negatives and slides, and we respect individual photographers' copyrights. We routinely give donors a comprehensive listing of donated negatives/slides as initially catalogued.

Air-Britain Colour Library Services –

We have been supplying low cost unmounted slide copies to members since 1964, and always relied on loans and donations of slides from members and other sources. Since the mid 1980s, the issue of new sets has been limited by the low level of sales, but approximately 20 slide sets continue to be available to purchase - see separate list on menu above.

In addition to detailed contents lists for slide sets, available on the slide sets page, you can download the complete catalogue of 7000 individual slides, comprising a comma separated values file suitable for import into almost all database and spreadsheet software (CSC.CSV) compressed into a zip archive file (CSCCSV.ZIP), size 160 kb. Download csccsv.zip (September 2010 version).

Colour slide copies - Unmounted slides in sets or selected from the catalogue are produced by bulk copying from inter-negative filmstrips, and are subject to variation in quality and availability of stock. Note that no unauthorised commercial reproduction of images is permitted. Current (2012) price of slide copies is gbp0.15 each, including UK taxes and surface mail to all Europe destinations. Minimum total order gbp3.00. Airmail outside Europe is available for an additional charge of gbp1.00.

Colour prints - A range of about 75 aircraft colour prints is available in size 5"x3.5" in limited quantities, price gbp0.15 each - see separate list in menu above.

See below for details of the ordering procedure and notes about entries in the catalogue.

Ordering procedure

  1. Combine slide numbers from all catalogues, and list clearly in numerical order - not in the order of appearance in the catalogues.
  2. If you wish us to check for errors, give a brief description of the aircraft type, but note that we do not usually check against serials.
  3. Delivery is typically up to 2 weeks within UK under normal conditions.
  4. Payment may be by International Money Order, Visa/Mastercard, UK Postal Order, Sterling cheque or bank draft on a UK based bank. We also accept original slides and negatives for exchange - see donations and bequests text above on this page. Make all orders payable to :- Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd.
  5. For Visa/Mastercard, please separately supply card number, the extra 3 digit code, card expiry date, payment total, plus your signature and date.
  6. Please send your order with name, address, membership number, payment to:- P W Dance, 9A Connaught Road, Teddington, Middx TW11 0PS.

Catalogue notes

A shot is classified as military if the aircraft colour scheme is obviously military or if a national military insignia is displayed or if the aircraft is camouflaged, regardless of any civilian registration.

Descriptive remarks are abbreviated, to suit the compressed format of the catalogues, and if untitled the markings are sometimes only mentioned where there might be any ambiguity. Typical annotations are as follows:-