I have some old paper apparently

[mrdarklight]

This came with an eBay purchase I got. Agfa Portriga Speed PS 318. It wasn't the primary selling point of what I bought so its more of a curiosity. Anyone know if this is variable contrast? I can't seem to find out what the deal is with this stuff... it's apparently really old.

There's a big "2" on the package, so I guess its probably not VC. I have no experience with non-VC paper... I guess the only way to control contrast is exposure?

 

[ozphoto]

Portriga Speed was one of my favorite papers before Agfa went bust.

It's a graded paper and you are correct that this is what the big "2" is for. In this case, this pack is Grade 2.
Before VC paper you used to match your neg contrast to the paper and that would mean you might have umpteen different boxes of different grades. Same principle now, except one box does it all and you just change filtration to increase or decrease contrast.

I've used some old paper on several occasions in the Postcard Exchange and more often than not, the paper was fine.
Enjoy experimenting with it - if it's still ok, you've scored some lovely paper.

 

[Ian Grant]

Portriga Speed was a very nice RC warm tone paper, it was the RC equivalent of Record Rapid.

If your lucky it might still be OK but the Agfa Warm tone papers don't age well compared to Bromide papers.

Ian

 

[Mike Wilde]

And speedy it was - the last of my stock was somewhere around 750 or so, compared to MGIV being rated as 500 unfiltered. So be ready to stop down.