Instructions for Handling and Care of Fine Photographic Prints is my source for archival information. It has Ansel Adams’s name and Carmel address (Route 1, Box 181) centered at the top and was mimeographed (!) on The Witkin Gallery stationery.Lee Witkin was a pioneer New York dealer in Ansel Adams and other black and white images. I picked up the Instructions on a visit to the gallery in 1972 when Ansel’s prints were selling for under $500. As an airman with two stripes at the time, I couldn’t afford the price; my car at the time was worth less money.

“To his best knowledge and belief, Ansel Adams states that his prints have practical archival quality and should last indefinitely unless subjected to an extraordinary destructive environment, excessive humidity, vermin and poor handling and storage conditions,” reads the publication (my italics). The instructions are addressing boxed collections of prints, not framed. I submit that my framed and glazed prints are vermin-proof.