What to do with VERY LARGE vintage collection?

[xian]

Hi everyone!

Thank you in advance for any advice you may have...

This could be a long post so I should just get right to it.

I have a collection of about 600 vintage films on 8mm and Super8 film. I've had these films transferred to digital and had them color corrected. The range of eras for the films is from the early 1900s-1960s.

I have experience with WordPress, and there are quite a few good video-type themes available these days. However, that is the full extent of me web site abilities, such that they are. So, I know web hosting, FTP, a bit of CSS etc, but that's it and it ain't much.

I'm wondering if anyone has ANY ideas as to how I might best monetize this asset? For example, with my very limited experience should I just sell the content, or build a site, or is it even possible to build a free site and turn a profit through ads (ala Tube8)?

I really have no idea what to do with this stuff, but it seems a shame to let it just sit.

Four or five years ago, when the collection may have actually been worth something, I was in touch with the Joe Spikes and Mike Hawk from Smashbucks and we were working on a deal. Likewise I had a few meetings with Phil Green in Marin, who thought there was definitely something to the collection. Unfortunately, I had many other things on my plate back then and never followed through.

Is it now just too late? Is the market saturated with this kind of stuff?

If not, any advice on what to do would be a HUGE help.

Thanks very much

Christian