I hear loads of rumours about private film collectors who have missing material but won surrender it. Is there a grain of truth amongst them all?
A very old chestnut, this one. Careful research by various people has revealed that many of the rumours circulating in fandom over the years are with only a very slight basis in fact. Such rumours are for example, that a private collector has some or all of The Macra Terror (almost certainly confusion with some amateur-shot clips from this episode, which began to circulate through fandom in 1996) and that William Hartnell was given a print of The Daleks’ Master Plan: The Feast of Steven after it was transmitted (he was actually given a 12 minute portion of The Dalek Invasion of Earth:2 which later found its way to the British Film Institute). One “recovery” often quoted by those advocating such conspiracy theories, is that a poor quality copy of The Tomb of the Cybermen was recovered from “fan” hands shortly after the story was returned from Hong Kong. It must be said that there is no truth whatsoever to this rumour – no redundant copy of Tomb was returned. This is yet another fan rumo
