MS_FACS_461

The images in this folder are digital scans ordered from the British Museum Library in 2018, received January 2019. I became aware of the existance of the images from (extremely) low resolution scans of a filmstrip found in a folder on the voynich.net. 

According to the description on these images, the BML "presumes" they received them circa 1931, but then "incorporated" them on the 12th of March, 1947. I have only uploaded the actual images of the pages of the Voynich, and also the BML description pages, and not the intervening images of the BACKS of the rotographs. These were blank. I enlarged each one individually, and carefully scanned them for any marks or notes of any kind. There were none. 

It seems (to me) that the rotographs (rotographs are a type of hard-copy photograph of an original) were bound into this book by the BML (see the seal on the first page), then photographed into the filmstrip these were prepared from. I do not know if they still own the hardcopy, bound version of this set of rotographs. 

I believe the rotographs are from the same set of original photographs which was used to prepare the set found (loose, not bound, in a box) in the New York Public Library. It also seems that the negatives used to prepare these, as was the case with the NYPL rotographs, are very early. The evidence for this is that f1r is "pre-treatment" (that is, no chemicals had yet been applied to the "signature" area at the bottom of f1r. But although I examined the rotographs in the NYPL, at that time I was not focused on this aspect, and cannot now say for certain. It also seems to me that the "signature" is not as dark in the original photograph found in the Voynich archives at the Beinecke (also pre-treatment). Although the "signature"  does seem darker on the BML image, here, the resolution of the rotograph, or photograph of them, is low, and so the "signature" as a whole is not visible. Nonetheless, I think it is obvious is is darker on this BML scan. 

However, these BML scans of their filmstrip of their rotographs appears "pre-treatment", and therefore the negatives they were prepared from are probably pre-1915, and possibly date to, or closer to, 1912. But I do not know for certain.

If these are used for any purpose, please credit the British Library Museum. 

Rich SantaColoma, January, 2019