I know this is a question with many answers, and it's all over the internet. But how long is black and white photo paper good for?
I feel like i hit the jackpot. I scored hundreds and hundreds of sheets of paper from a craigslist ad for only $60. It's mixed sizes and brands, mostly arista, foma and ilford, fiber, RC and VC. I was assured by the seller that they should all work, since they were tested, and he used some for personal work. The story is that a freestyle employee (whom i bought this from) was tasked with testing each batch of paper by processing one sheet from one box. If that sheet was good then, the entire factory order was good since they are cut from master rolls. Problem is that you can't sell an opened box of paper, so he got to keep them all! it got to be too much so he ended up selling it on los angeles craigslist. I asked how old are they and he said it's mixed and that he lost track but no older than 2014. One box says purchased december 2014, and another july 2015. He explained that arista is really just foma, and that the paper really isn't aged enough to matter. He also said that he wants to see examples, and that if anything is fogged ect ect to visit him at his office at freestyle in hollywood and he'd get me other testers for free!
I rent space at a darkroom in los angeles, and time is money so i wonder what is a good and fast way to test one sheet from each pack. There are about 30+ packs. I figure there are two choices:
A. Take a negative that i have printed before on ilford paper that i bought fresh, print it once more with a single sheet from each pack and compare. I have one in mind a well balanced low contrast negative.
B. just expose each sheet to direct light from the enlarger head, and then process and compare
C. Well, APUG is there even a third option? I noticed that there are serial numbers on each pack of ilford, arista, and foma, i couldn't find the same on the adox box.