Adox MCC & Polywarmtone PAPER availability?

pentaxuser said:

Now you're back with us can I ask whether you ever did get in touch with Mirko or are you waiting to see waht the answer is on whether the paper will appear at fotoimpex

Thanks

pentaxuser

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Hey pentaxuser; yes I've sent them an email; waiting for a reply - i'll be in touch if i get an update

I was made aware of this in the Color Film thread.
I could not read through all but what I can say is that due to COVID we are still stressed on the labour end. We are trying to recruit new people but we also have to be able to pay them in the long run (not just to finish two rolls). The team which finished paper retired last year and because we can currently not coat any paper at reasonable costs we have no one to finish the Minijumbos. Therefore the finishing was delayed until the training of cutting sheet film had finished and then that is exactly what we did for 8 weeks. Then came COLOR MISSION and we sold it all in weeks and now HELIOS. Also because there are such great shortages in the market at present because other manufacturers cannot supply we are mainly focusing on film. Its summer and what does not get shot now, will not be printed in the darkroom in the fall. We still plan to finish the test coatings. And we would be very happy if we manage to do so until Oktober when the wet darkroom season starts.

ADOX Fotoimpex said:

I was made aware of this in the Color Film thread.
I could not read through all but what I can say is that due to COVID we are still stressed on the labour end. We are trying to recruit new people but we also have to be able to pay them in the long run (not just to finish two rolls). The team which finished paper retired last year and because we can currently not coat any paper at reasonable costs we have no one to finish the Minijumbos. Therefore the finishing was delayed until the training of cutting sheet film had finished and then that is exactly what we did for 8 weeks. Then came COLOR MISSION and we sold it all in weeks and now HELIOS. Also because there are such great shortages in the market at present because other manufacturers cannot supply we are mainly focusing on film. Its summer and what does not get shot now, will not be printed in the darkroom in the fall. We still plan to finish the test coatings. And we would be very happy if we manage to do so until Oktober when the wet darkroom season starts.

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Ahhh. Will wait patiently for this beautiful paper.

The business model that is being discussed is almost comical. What other business does this? Anything else, people do their market research before starting into production, they don't just make the product, then offer it up w/ one of these pay-as-you go schemes. Wouldn't that in itself make one wonder about the paper's future availability and prices?

It's the manufacturer's job to make a product that people want, at a price they can afford. It's very odd for a company to be asking for money up front. That's a kickstarter thing.

I for one have given up on any sort of MCC papers being made, and that's ok. It's what happens when competitors have good products on their shelves and offer steady production runs. Cause and effect, everything is all about that. I can't print photos on corporate projections.

With no word Mirko had it above about "asking for money up front".

He once had it about rising raw paper costs. If one had a less established market position, a lesser productivity, a small margin, which then was eaten up by that rise, would it be far to seek to cancel such production?

momus said:

It's very odd for a company to be asking for money up front. That's a kickstarter thing.

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Adox products is the opposite of a kickstarter thing, Mirko himself has said that he doesn't like the crowfunding model. Fotoimpex and Adox income pays the development and production of Adox products.

Analog photography sales are on film, specially 35mm color film. B/W printing has not experiment any increasing interest like film, and paper is a small runner whether we like it or not. For a small company with very limited resources like Adox makes sense to put paper products with the lowest priority.

K-G said:

Is there any news on the availability of MCC 110 ?

Karl-Gustaf

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Bump.

Bump

i've been hearing crickets....for years now

There's been nothing but complaining for years on PHOTRIO about the increasing cost of film and paper. Currently, Ilford Multigrade FB Classic costs $1.40 per sheet:


Mirko has stated many times that the cost of production means ADOX would only lose money if it sold MCC 110 at a price to compete in this market. Much as I loved it (at least until ADOX changed the top coat and made it too shiny), I would not be willing to pay around $2.50 per 8x10 sheet. Which is my wild guess of what it might need to sell for, since Mirko hasn't specified as far as I can recall. How many here, and more importantly in the wider market outside PHOTRIO, would shell out that much money?

I suspect that, when the labor challenges Mirko described above are eventually overcome, Polywarmtone will be offered for sale. At a price close to what I just speculated about. The market might tolerate that cost for what is allegedly a unique paper, but it seems unlikely there would be any acceptance in the case of MCC 110, which has a viable competitor from Ilford.

My recollection is that Adox very clearly stated that the Polywarmtone would only be available as a DIY emulsion, for the foreseeable future.

Does anyone have any insight as to what is going on at Adox in regards to Polywarmtone and MCC? Wondering if this is still something that is coming or if other factors have stopped development. The pandemic and supply chain issues I'm sure have thrown a wrench in things.

Edit: This post got moved to this thread. Didn't see it before. That is sad news if accurate that MCC and Polywarmtone paper will not be coming to the market anytime soon.

freestyle has the emulsion...coat it yourself if so determined
that IS the only option

haliderollei said:

I agree with your statements. And again, modern times need new business models. I think Mirko can completely de-risk a huge part of Adox’s paper business by doing pre paid runs. I would say, as buyers of the paper, let’s help Adox out, commit money by doing a pre-sale, if said amount of capital is not reached, accept a refund and as investors of the pre-sale cover the refund fees (3% I think if we use PayPal) to cover financial risk for Adox to show them how committed we are. I’m sure you can have big buyers from all over the world easily commit a production run, ask Adox dealers to join in maybe as well? 3% going out of my pocket is no big deal at all.

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Halide-Rollei, this unfortunately does not include this risk of manufacturing which is the real problem. We made about 7 coatings of PW with two being sellable and 5 being waste. The manufacturing of a silver halide material is not a cakewalk. There are hundreds if not thousands of things that can go wrong. We get better with every month and every precipitation or coating. But at this point I do not feel comfortable to take upfront money. We want to deliver quality products at a reasonable price. Ther risk of manufacturing shall not be on the customers side. This would be unfair. We have to take this. On the other hand this means we will not offer anything if we are not feeling comfortable about the outcome. Please be patient and do not pressure us. Thank you. Mirko

Whenever you feel you are ready to coat PW-paper again, can you please also try to make a new coating of MCC 110. There are other good papers around, but being without the best for such a long time is a tough life for a darkroom addict. Take care all of you .

Karl-Gustaf

ADOX Fotoimpex said:

Halide-Rollei, this unfortunately does not include this risk of manufacturing which is the real problem. We made about 7 coatings of PW with two being sellable and 5 being waste. The manufacturing of a silver halide material is not a cakewalk. There are hundreds if not thousands of things that can go wrong. We get better with every month and every precipitation or coating. But at this point I do not feel comfortable to take upfront money. We want to deliver quality products at a reasonable price. Ther risk of manufacturing shall not be on the customers side. This would be unfair. We have to take this. On the other hand this means we will not offer anything if we are not feeling comfortable about the outcome. Please be patient and do not pressure us. Thank you. Mirko

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Hi Mirko, thank you for clarifying. Also sorry for the pressure, never meant to do that. Wishing you well.

I would like to ask if there is any good news on the subject of MCC.
I have the impression that Ilford is aging very fast and I would love to go back to Adox.

adamlugi said:

I would like to ask if there is any good news on the subject of MCC.
I have the impression that Ilford is aging very fast and I would love to go back to Adox.

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Thank you for our support Adam and your interest in our excellent MCC paper.

At the current, very low, prices for photographic paper in respect to the complexity of manufacturing them, we cannot break even on producing "standard" papers. As per today you can buy Multigrade Classic for about 23 EUR per sqm as an end user. This would leave about 11 EUR´s for the manufacturer to cover costs and a (small but necessary) profit.
HP5 sheetfilm sells for 144 EUR´s per coated sqm., leaving the manufacturer with almost 70 EUR´s. Now, the base for film is more expensive and the sensitizers are as well. Also there is more silver in the emulsion and speed is more difficult to achive but this is neglectible because the real costs are wages in production and here it´s the same amount of work/costs for both. We have an "artisan" like manufacturing process. Our kettles are 20x smaller than those of our competition and our coating machine coats about 20 time less per run. Economies of scale do not kick in with our current setup in the way they do for a larger manufacturer. If we were to make MCC in our setup we needed to charge more than double what Ilford charges. Frankly I do not see a market there. We are always optimizing workflow and we are currently modernising a lot in our factory. If we manage to reduce human labour in the future and robotize more of the manufacturing process, these figures might change. But until then we have to focus on products with a higher sqm price to create the needed cash flow to pay wages.
Large volume/low price products are better manufactured by our partners.