Great news! Empire is finally getting the attention it deserves! Too bad about the Australian print. I understand his reasoning though. I wouldn’t want to risk losing a one-of-a-kind print in the shipping process either. At least the faded prints are salvageable.

Poita, do you know any details about the ultrasonic cleaning? I’ve heard of cleaning with filmguard to clean film and help offset vinegar syndrome, but not the ultrasonic cleaning.

One of the reasons the UK print might be less faded is just that a different lab with a higher standard of printing made it. I’ve seen Kodak prints that have barely faded because they were properly processed, fixed, and washed. Not Kodachrome or IB Tech prints. There were so many labs back in the day that weren’t keeping up with Kodak’s specification of quality control. Combine the fact that Kodak’s old stocks naturally break down because of dye stability, that so many labs might have had less than high quality development procedures, and that many people don’t store films properly in cold storage, it’s no wonder why so many prints are faded.
I know from C-41 still film color developing that the process is very exact and even running the developing solutions at the wrong temperature can produce what may look like an acceptable negative, but can have issues with dye stability down the road. Not to mention who knows if the labs were using diluted chemicals that had gone past their shelf life (color developing chemicals have a very short shelf life and need to be diluted and mixed fresh right before developing the film.