When we get a chance to look at vintage photos, it always seems that things were completely different back in the day and it’s just so hard to imagine what life was like back then before modern technology took over.

25 years ago Bill Nelson, a vintage photography enthusiast, found a packet of negatives at an estate sale in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and has been trying to find as much information about these black and white photos as possible. “The negatives themselves are about 10 cm x 12.5 cm and are cut from roll film. The film stock is quite brittle and is, I believe, nitrocellulose, so I store them in a freezer. Because they are fragile and inevitably degrading, I took the time to scan these old photos at a high resolution. Still, it’s quite remarkable they survived at all, given their indifferent treatment for the first 90 years of their existence,” Bill told Bored Panda.

According to him, photos like these can give a palpable connection to the period in European countries and an opportunity to know it differently than you would from modern histories.

Scroll down to see these interesting photos yourself, and don’t forget to tell us what you think in the comments.

More info: Bill Nelson