35mm filed as single negs?

This was something I read on a forum. At first it seemed a bit daft but the more I thought about it...

So I thought I'd turn to the hive mind of my loyal readers to see if anyone is doing it. By the way, I managed to clock up 300 followers at some point recently so I now think of those of you who actually follow the blog as The Spartans.

But back to this single neg business. Anyone who prints from 35mm - or scans as well most likely - will be familiar with the drawbacks of having a strip of negatives to work with. They can be difficult to sit square in the negative carrier, they can curl a bit or a lot depending on the film, they pick up fine scratches being slipped in and out of negative files and they have to be searched through when you're looking for a particular one - but that might just be my chaotic filing system to blame.

I can't remember the forum I was on but a chap suggested that one should cut one's best negatives from the strips and sandwich them in 645 slide mounts complete with anti-Newton's rings glass. He went on to explain some of the benefits which include ease of filing and locating, no more scratches going in and out of the plastic or paper filing sleeves and the ability to print full frame with a nice, black border.

The number of surfaces to be cleaned or dusted prior to printing is the same as in a glassless negative carrier and half the number of a carrier with top and bottom glasses but you get the benefits of the latter in terms of film flatness.

I'm sure there may be some photographers out there with literally hundreds of top class negatives that they print from regularly but I'm not one of them. I'd imagine most people would be like me and have strips and strips of negs with a good one here and there rather than row after row of winners. On that basis, it would seem to make some sort of sense to separate the winners and put the rest in a drawer. Chances are you'll never want to print from them anyway and if you did they're near at hand in the same format they would have been in had you not gone down the single neg route in the first place.

A big benefit of this approach is that all your winners can sit together in a slide box neatly labelled and easily found. I think this would be a powerful incentive. Imagine the feeling when you decide that a few negatives from your latest roll merit inclusion in the hall of fame. And the striving in future to add to this collection. You might not have enough negs to fill the first slide box but work hard and keep your standards high and gradually the number of empty slots will dwindle. Then you'll be on to your second slide box!

Want to work on a project or theme? Get yourself a big lightbox, scatter your winners upon it and you'll be able go see at a glance those negs that fit together. And what about those negatives that are borderline on your strips? They're quite good but you decide not to print them just now because you have some better ones demanding your attention? If you're like me, you might never return to them. But under the single neg scheme, you'd have to decide if they've made the "cut" for inclusion in your box of winners.

The more I write about this, the more I think I'm talking myself into it. But what about the practicalities? How much are 645 slide mounts? How easy would it be to sandwich the 35mm neg in one? How would it work under the enlarger? Are there any drawbacks I haven't identified? Well, I haven't tried it so I can't answer most of those questions but it seems Gepe mounts will set you back about £1.50 each which isn't exactly cheap. But think of the benefits. Perfectly flat negs to print from, no dust or scratches, no environmental/pollution concerns, ease of storage and access, nice borders to your prints and the motivation from your box of winners.

So, is anyone out there using this system or was my first reaction - it's a bit daft - correct?