20 to 30 Year Old B&W Chemicals Still Good?

Developed and printed my last roll of black and white film twenty some odd years ago. While reacquainting myself with my old darkroom equipment, I found the chemicals listed below, which were stored in a cool place in a dry climate. Does anyone know which, if any, of these chemicals might still be good today?

Cheers,

Jay Decker
Kennewick, WA

Foil Packets of Kodak Fixer
Foil Packets of Kodak Dektol Developer
Foil Packets of Kodak Selectol Developer
Foil Packets of Kodak Hypo Clearing Agent
Foil Packets of Kodak Sepia Toner

Plastic Container of Elon
Plastic Container of Anhydrous Solum Sulfite
Amber Glass Jar of Balanced Alkali
Amber Glass Jar of Anhydrous Sodium Sulfite

Plastic bottle of glacial acetic acid
Plastic bottle of Indicator Stop Bath
Amber Glass bottle of Edwal Ferro Type Polish
Plastic bottle of Patterson Anti-static Wetting Agent

Any of the developers are toast. Everything else is probably fine.

Elon: if its color is more than a very faint tan -toss it

The developers might be okay. The foil packets worked better back then than they do now. Give them a try, but on something non-critical.

The clearer the developers are after mixing, the more likely they are good.

Clueless said:

Elon: if its color is more than a very faint tan -toss it

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The Elon and Sulfite are still snow white and have not formed a "cake", but I have a hard time thinking that they are still good after 25 five plus years...

The foil packaging looks like they did when purchased at the local photography shop - when there were local shops and they all sold paper and chemistry. The prices brought a smile, e.g., less than $2 for a gallon of Kodak fixer.

Any chance the paper is still good? Found some nice Agfa papers...

I am currently using Ansco 17 from the early 50's, I would give the developers a trial with a test roll.

monkeytumble said:

Any chance the paper is still good? Found some nice Agfa papers...

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Hi monkeytumble,

The paper should still be good if it has been stored in a cool, dry place, although it will probably have dropped a couple of grades in contrast.

In the 1990s I bought a collection of old Agfa papers which had pre-decimal (1971) prices on them - the chances are they were older than me! There was various sizes of papers, some Brovira and Portriga - even some Ilford Plastika which IIRC was the first resin paper. The Agfa papers were good because they had been mostly grades 5 and 6, and had fallen to around 2 to 3, giving acceptable prints from normal negatives.

I still have a couple of sheets of 15" x 12" Brovira, which i'm planning to use soon.

The Ilford Plastika was shot though - hardly surprising since it looked about forty years old!

One thing you'll have to watch is the stop-bath - make sure this is fresh. The older papers are much less tolerant of residual developer and will stain easily. If you use your fingers to lift the paper make sure you remove and dev from them before putting the print into the fixer. Likewise, rinse and tongs out.

The powder chemicals, including devs, should be fine as long as the packs are properly sealed.

Have fun,
kevs

Test them. Last year I helped re-build the darkroom at a local high school. They gave me old boxes of chems, many dated to 1957. most of them were good.

yeah, test the paper and the developers.
i use a lot of outdated paper and it is still good.
the best developer i have ever used was in an unopened can
that was in on a drafty-windowsill for 30 years - the summer heat ( 90ºF +and winter cold (below 50ºF)...