8 year old Ilford FB paper... Any good?

[David Brown]

Would a test such as this seem reasonable?

http://jbhphoto.com/blog/2011/06/07/measuring-paper-fog/

 

[Vincent Brady]

I have a lot of old paper and I'm thinking of having a go at making 'lumen prints' once the summer settle's down.

 

[Ian Grant]

I would hazard a guess that graded paper will age better than VC, and cool tone/ neutral much better than warm tone. I still have Brovira from the 1970s stored at room temp that is perfect. Portriga from a bit later is terrible.

That's spot on, 1950's Kodak Bromide paper and 60's Ilfobrom was still good albeit slower and a touch less contrasty than you's expect from fresh paper. Some Kodesko was OK as well I test all the papers before donating them to a workshop for demo work 3 years ago.

However modern Warm tone papers with no Cadmium don't keep as well. So my Record Rapid from the mid 90's is totally useless, Sterling and Oriental were worse they died years earlier. Remember all these papers had the same storage except the pre 80's/90's Kodak and Ilford which came with bulk darkroom purchases.

VC papers don't fare too badly as long as they aren't warm tone.

Ian