# Securing film stock: nitrate does not belong in the home next to the heater

> Secure film: identify the stock, store nitrate apart and professionally, acetate cool, copies not only in the same room.
> Quelle: https://tresorrari.de/artikel/filmmaterial-sichern · Stand: 2026-10-01 · Tresorrari Redaktion

Old film is not all the same. Nitrate burns differently from acetate, and acetate breaks down into a smell of vinegar. Neither belongs in a box in the attic, "until someone looks". In the overview [Security for collectors](/artikel/sicherheit-fuer-sammler), this is a holding in which the safety of the home and that of the piece are the same subject.

## What breaks without a thief

Heat, damp, the wrong can, an attic in August. Acetate that smells of vinegar infects the neighboring film. You separate what smells. You identify nitrate before you store it. If it is nitrate, you ask a place that accepts film stock whether it may stay in the home or must go into specialist storage. This text is not a license to stack nitrate next to the heater.

## When someone comes

Film cans are heavy and look like clutter. The damage from tipping and from fire is greater than resale. The locked, cool place and the list are the protection. A digital viewing copy lies outside the home, the original not only on the one shelf.

## The folder

Format, base in your words after identification, title, length, smell or condition, origin. What you cannot identify stays separate until someone can.

## Häufige Fragen

### Does the can smell of vinegar?

Then the acetate is breaking down. Away from the rest of the film, cool, and ask someone who knows the material.

### Is every old film nitrate?

No. Identify, do not guess. Nitrate is a fire subject for the whole home.

### Is a file enough?

As a viewing copy, yes. The original remains its own piece in a cool place.