Anyone familiar with these old papers ?

I received a box each of the following papers from a friend of a friend but know little about them. They are roughly 20 years old and all grade 3 but the boxes do not state if they are RC or Fibre.

Kodak Bromesko WSG.3D
Agfa Brovira-Speed BN 310 PE
Ilford Ilfospeed 3.1M

Any idea what I have ?

Peter

thefizz said:

I received a box each of the following papers from a friend of a friend but know little about them. They are roughly 20 years old and all grade 3 but the boxes do not state if they are RC or Fibre.

Kodak Bromesko WSG.3D

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Don't know but probably FB

thefizz said:

Agfa Brovira-Speed BN 310 PE
Ilford Ilfospeed 3.1M

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Both are RC fixed grade papers - how well they have aged is anybody's guess.

Hope this helps,

Lachlan

The agfa is Polyethelene coated, ie RC. Never heard of the Kodak

Thanks guys.

The Agfa and Ilford were standard RC graded papers and were around for quite a while both great papers.

The Bromesko was the paper I used in my youth, while still at school. Great graded paper, fibre based, you have the White Smooth Gloss Grade 3 Double weight

Ian

I'm looking forward to trying them out, thank you all for your help.

Peter

thefizz said:

Ilford Ilfospeed 3.1M

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My 20 years old Ilfospeed (matte) is still usable, despite being stored in room temperature. Highlight contrast is somewhat reduced, which makes it very good for some subjects! To my big surprise, it is also visibly sharper than any other paper I've tried - and I went through 20 different ones in one batch to see what was usable and what was junk.

The Bromesko was the paper I used in my youth, while still at school. Great graded paper, fibre based, you have the White Smooth Gloss Grade 3 Double weight

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Bromesko! That's a rave from the grave! I too, used it in my yoof. Great paper. Was it warm tone? I don't really remember. I have an old print made on Kodak paper which I always believed to be made on Bromesko ( I was only in my early teens then, I didn't think to take notes). Anyway, it exhibits an incredibly warm tone, whatever it is.

Well Blighty for the life of me I can't really understand why I didn't use Ilford paper as a kid. I do remember that the only two chemists stores in the town I went to school in both stocked Kodak Bromesko, one also stocked a little bit of Agfa too.

Nor can I remember how I bought bulk rolls of cheap FP3, & HP3, but I was to young to have a bank account. Just found a Bromesko WSG SW print I made in about 1970/71.

Have a few hundred sheets of Bromesko left, all must be 30+ years old, mostly half plate & smaller, I was going to chuck them out for silver recovery, but when I tested some I found they all printed extremely well, just a half to full grade softer than when new, probably a little slower too. Also have some boxes of Kodak Veribrom, Ilford Ilfobrom graded paper some from 67'ish and also early Ilfospeed.

Much of the paper was acquired when I bought a complete colour darkroom setup in 2000.

I should add only one brand of paper hasn't kept and that was the Sterling. That showed fogging with ageing.

Ian

I don't know if it would apply to the papers in question, but I remember reading an aritcle by Ctein about problems with early RC papers either bronzing or showing bleached out spots of the emulsion after only a few years on display. He had to replace numerous RC prints made for customers at that time. I think one of the conclusions was treating RC papers with Sistan would help prevent the problem.

I don't recall the specific time frame of his prints (maybe from the 70s) so the problems with RC he experienced may have been rectified by mfgs by the mid 80s.

Jim Chinn said:

I don't know if it would apply to the papers in question, but I remember reading an aritcle by Ctein a

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Quite right Jim, I have early RC/PE prints placed in plastic wallets/folders and the highlights have completely bleached out due to the plasticisers. Should add that only occured with Ilford & Kodak early RC/PE papers, for the professional & consumer market. The first RC/PE paper I bought was quite different and ex-militiary stock, and not so probably not designed to last but it's lasted perfectly. It might have been made by Kentmere, had more in common with the excellent Kentmere early RC paper Kenthene.

However the older FB papers are fine

Ian

Ian Grant said:

Quite right Jim, I have early RC/PE prints placed in plastic wallets/folders and the highlights have completely bleached out due to the plasticisers. Should add that only occured with Ilford & Kodak early RC/PE papers, for the professional & consumer market. The first RC/PE paper I bought was quite different and ex-militiary stock, and not so probably not designed to last but it's lasted perfectly. It might have been made by Kentmere, had more in common with the excellent Kentmere early RC paper Kenthene.

However the older FB papers are fine

Ian

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After reading your post it jogged my memory about possible outgassing from matboards or plastics in the vicinity of the prints that was thought to be a possible culprit. I am going to have to dig out the old article now when I have time.

I have some ilford ilfospeed 3.1M that doesn't say anything about being resin or polyethylene coated. I have a few boxes that were given to me from about 1981. When left to dry, they curl up like fibre paper. I'm a little uneasy about sending them through my arkay dual-dri. It they are RC, they'll melt and ruin the drum. Does anyone know if this paper was made in fibre? I like the results it gives and would like to use it.

Rick

ricksplace said:

I have some ilford ilfospeed 3.1M that doesn't say anything about being resin or polyethylene coated.
Rick

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Ilfospeed is a Resin coated paper, thats why the word speed is in its name, it was the RC equivalent of fibre based Ilfobrom.

Ian

Ian Grant said:

Ilfospeed is a Resin coated paper, thats why the word speed is in its name, it was the RC equivalent of fibre based Ilfobrom.

Ian

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I thought that "speed" or "rapid" in the name of a paper referred to how quickly the paper developed. My use of speed papers tends to bear this out. I thought most speed papers were developer incorporated in order to speed up development times for machine processing. I currently use some ilford rapid RC MG that fully develops in about 30-45 sec.

I have noticed that some ilfospeed paper advertised on ebay state RC on the package. The paper I have does not say RC and behaves like fibre paper.

Has anyone out there used ilfospeed paper that was not RC?

Ian Grant said:

Have a few hundred sheets of Bromesko left, all must be 30+ years old, mostly half plate & smaller, I was going to chuck them out for silver recovery, but when I tested some I found they all printed extremely well, just a half to full grade softer than when new, probably a little slower too....

Ian

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reliving this old thread...

Ian: do you still have this bromesko paper?

Since Gandolfi's revived this, I just wanted to put a note in that I have scans of the following papers' accompanying information sheets if anyone needs or would like them. Obviously not all of the papers listed are of significant age; I'm simply too lazy to sort through them all and delete the newer papers from this list!


Agfa Brovira-Speed BS 312 PE
Agfa Brovira-Speed BW 312 PE
Agfa Multicontrast MCP 310 RC Glossy
Agfa Portriga PN 114e Normal White Rough
Agfa Portriga Rapid PRK118
Fomaspeed Variant RC Lustre
Ilfobrom IB2.24K Semi Matt Double Weight
Ilfobrom IB2.26K Velvet Stipple Double Weight
Ilfobrom IB2.35K Rayon Double Weight
Ilfobrom IB3.1K Glossy Double Weight
Ilfobrom IB3.1P Glossy Single Weight
Ilfobrom IB4.26K Velvet Stipple Double Weight
Ilford B2.K Double Weight Normal Glossy
Ilford Bromide B2-5K Double Weight Normal Matt
Ilford Bromide B3-1K Double Weight Hard Glossy
Ilford Bromide B3-24K Double Weight Hard Semi Matt
Ilford C3.1P Contact Single Weight Hard Glossy
Ilford Galerie 21K Glossy Double Weight
Ilford Ilfobrom 2.24K Semi-Matt Double Weight
Ilford Ilfobrom 3.24K Semi-Matt Double Weight
Ilford Ilfomar IM3.18K White Grained Double Weight
Ilford MG IV RC Glossy
Ilfospeed 2.24M Semi Matt Medium Weight
Ilfospeed Multigrade II MG.5M Matt Medium Weight
Kodak Polycontrast Rapid II RC F
Kodak Polymax II RC E
Kodak Polyprint RC F M White Smooth Glossy Medium Weight

I've been using some old Brovira from the 60s and Ilfospeed from the late 80s and are still giving me wonderful results. The past 3 or 4 postcard exchanges have been on these old papers. (My eyes totally popped when I used an entire unopened box of Agfa Brovira and every single sheet was perfect!)

It does depend on storage - some of the Ilfospeed has a little fog on the edges, whilst other boxes from the same batch are perfect.

How I'd love to try out Bromesko - I have adverts from some old photographic books that I have matted and framed - the Bromesko ones are particular favourites.

The old harder ilfospeeds drop contrast. I am working though a box of 4.1M that now acts more like a grade 2.

The developer incorporated papers while rapid are not always long lived. MGIII rapid paper was developer incorporated, and my stash is now all uniformly grey fogged

Fraid I'm a newbie to this site, but I have just had a stroke of luck being given 12 boxes of Kodak Bromide papers in various sizes and grades, mostly 2 & 3 with the odd box of 1 & 4.
I seem to have two different flavours too, 'Veribrom' and 'Kodak Bromide'. I was told they were about 20 years old, but I think they are more like 30 years +.
So far I have tested only one sheet from one box and it shows a clean unfogged result. Judging by the weight of each box it must amount to about 700 sheets -at a guess- but I haven't opened every box yet.
When I left home developing about 30 years ago, these papers were the norm. When I picked it up again 8 years ago, I was greeted with multigrade RC: that really did feel strange but I soon got use to it and was glad to be able to sepia tone prints on this 'new' paper.
If it's possible to upload pictures to this page then as soon as I have some results I'll post them up.
Looking forward to some nice rich blacks....

Oh Scouser, I'm soooooo jealous!!

Been busy since my last post and I'm itching to try the bromide papers. I did get a half hour in the darkroom the other day to tidy up and prep for a printing session.
Whilst shifting stuff about I noticed one of the boxes of paper was of an unknown brand namely DELOP 3SW. The 3SW is easy enough to decipher (grade 3 single weight) but DELOP?
Google couldn't help, has anyone come across this one? The paper is packed in a brown manilla cardboard box with the followin prited info on a small yellow borderd white label which reads;

DELOP 3SW
hard
100
Glossy
OPEN IN DARK ROOM

Any clues as to manufacturer, age, whatever? :confused: