I just sent some vintage 16mm marching contest reels from the 70s to be digitized.

The company said that they have video, but no audio, and they want to charge me a partial fee for the work. I'm wondering why they didn't stop, and tell me this after the first reel had not sound.

Can old 16mm reels lose their audio over time, from heat, cold, etc.? The company is telling me they found no audio track, but I'm reading that you can tell if there was originally a track by just looking at the film.