It might be nice for someone to combine one of these with a recoloring model.

I remember initially being surprised when my parents told me that "the past was in color; just the photos were in black and white". Apparently, color film photography didn't really become economical until the 1960s. Being able to see black and white photos of the past with added colors can help give a better sense of what the past actually looked like.

(The usual caveats about the risks of incorrect recoloring apply, of course.)