J&C- gone forever?

Eric Rose · May 13, 2007

http://www.jandcphoto.com/JandC/update.htm

This is so sad. John is a great guy and he provided a quality service. I hope he can resurface under a new company.

This further strengthens my support of Ilford.
Eric

Aurelien · May 13, 2007

kwmullet · May 13, 2007

I just saw that too!

That's awful. The loss of JandC is a loss to the entire traditional photographic community. True, there are other places to go for most of the stuff they carried, but some stuff we'll be in a real bind to find a distributor (like 3x4 film). I was really looking forward to seeing them come back and prosper.

That's just one more thing to lock me into a permanantly sour mood -- when *threats* of lawsuits can keep good people out of business.

Maybe there's only a fixed amount of decency in the world, and as the population grows, it becomes more and more indecent. Seems like that just now.

-KwM-

Peter Schrager · May 13, 2007

thanks John

I just want to send out a thank you to John for his wonderful work and his helping all of out during this wacky transitional time in analog photography. He was foremost in supporting us for the APUG conference. He also just happens to be a really nice person and this whole thiing stinks-bigtime. Thank you john-and I' m sure that I speak for the majority here...good luck in whatever road you travel on next.
Best, Peter Schrager

Bob Carnie · May 13, 2007

I will second Peters statement
without John stepping forward with cash in hand there never would of been an APUG conference and I would not have been priviledged to meet so many fine members of this community.
JD Callow can fill in the $ figures if he feels it appropriate but it was the reason the conference moved forward.

Peter Schrager said:
I just want to send out a thank you to John for his wonderful work and his helping all of out during this wacky transitional time in analog photography. He was foremost in supporting us for the APUG conference. He also just happens to be a really nice person and this whole thiing stinks-bigtime. Thank you john-and I' m sure that I speak for the majority here...good luck in whatever road you travel on next.
Best, Peter Schrager

Uncle Bill · May 13, 2007

I am sorry to see JandC go under as I really love the Adox 100 and classicpan 400 film. I wish I bought some paper from him too. I second what Bob Carnie said, John helped out with the conference in a big way both in a financial and just by showing up with product to sell.

One thing I have learned over the years, nature abhors a vacuumm. I would not be surprised if Fotimpex has a new North American partner at some point.

I wish John well.

Bill

zenrhino · May 13, 2007

This just sucks.

John deserves much better than this.

jovo · May 13, 2007

To the extent that 'frivolous lawsuits' contributed to J and C's demise, one can only wonder how seemingly higher order primates can become brain dead parasites who kill the host. Stupid and sad.

I ordered 16x20 paper from John and knew it was the only place in the US that carried paper in 12x16 sizes. I'm so sorry. Best wishes to John for a happy turn of better fortune!

JLP · May 13, 2007

A very sad ending to something that looked so promissing. Best to you and your family John.
Now i am very curious about the lawsuits, if they in any way are from people i currently deal with i would like to know so i could end that relationship very fast.

jan

roteague · May 13, 2007

John is a great guy. I had the privilege of meeting him in Toronto. I hope things turn around for him, so that he can continue doing what he loves most - traditional photography.

haryanto · May 13, 2007

so sad, hope the best for John and His Family

jstraw · May 13, 2007

JLP said:
A very sad ending to something that looked so promissing. Best to you and your family John.
Now i am very curious about the lawsuits, if they in any way are from people i currently deal with i would like to know so i could end that relationship very fast.

jan

If there are lawsuits...and you don't know anything about them...not even who the plaintiff might be, how can you be in a position to determine their merit? Sometimes nice people get sued and sometimes those suits have merit.

I know NOTHING about what's going on. But I'm not in a hurry to make a decision that results in the effective loss of TWO sources for materials.

It might be best to go slow, not take choose up sides and to make these decisions with the benefit of real information or not at all.

Just sayin'.

Sanjay Sen · May 13, 2007

J&C's demise is indeed a loss to the analog photo community, especially to those of us who like to use non-standard formats and love to experiment with films from small vendors. I wish John all the best, and sincerely hope for his success.

Best wishes,
Sanjay

pentaxuser · May 13, 2007

Purely curiosity on my part as it was never likely that I was going to be able to make use of J&C, being U.K. based, but the press release raises more questions than answers.

As it operated several months ago without, I assume, any threats from suppliers or frivolous lawsuits, what has prompted these?

I thought that it closed down in order to re-open, as a bigger and more comprehensive company and couldn't logistically or financially continue to operate its then current business while trying to set up the new outfit.

Presumably the extra cash and other resources were guaranteed before it closed down, otherwise why give up a successful business and take a big hit cashflow wise unless such guarantees were in place?

I am sure I am missing something or many things here but I cannot construct a scenario of how the circumstances which has prevented re-opening taking place have come about.

There may be rivals who will be unhappy at the prospect of renewed competition but what lawsuits does the U.S. law allow which authorises what I can only assume to be a form of restraint of trade in the broadest sense of the word?

There are a lot more questions than answers at this point.

pentaxuser

nworth · May 13, 2007

This is truly distressing. J&C was just about the only one stop shopping place for the oddball stuff that we all need from time to time. It was the only place we could get many obsolete things, like dye transfer supplies, 2X3 and 3X4 sheet film, etc.

Paul Sorensen · May 13, 2007

pentaxuser said:
As it operated several months ago without, I assume, any threats from suppliers or frivolous lawsuits, what has prompted these?
[snip]
There may be rivals who will be unhappy at the prospect of renewed competition but what lawsuits does the U.S. law allow which authorises what I can only assume to be a form of restraint of trade in the broadest sense of the word?

One possibility that occurs to me is that not selling products for many months might have been something that J&C's suppliers objected to. This is speculation, and I have absolutely no inside knowledge, but it looks like the kind of thing that can happen in cases like this. I also agree with the previous post that we really don't know that the lawsuits are frivolous, except that J&C believes that they are. (Even if we had all the details, frivolity is in the eye of the beholder.)

pentaxuser said:
There are a lot more questions than answers at this point.

With this I agree. I doubt that what is being hinted at will not be made public, but it is hard to see this happen and not know what is going on. Of course, knowing more wouldn't help since we still wouldn't have J&C and the knowledge or accusations might hurt other suppliers or manufacturers as well.

I have not been a regular customer of J&C, but I have purchased from them and planned to do so upon their reopening. I am very sad to see that they will not be opening and if they should change their minds, I do commit to ordering products from them.

Monophoto · May 13, 2007

pentaxuser said:
As it operated several months ago without, I assume, any threats from suppliers or frivolous lawsuits, what has prompted these?

I thought that it closed down in order to re-open, as a bigger and more comprehensive company and couldn't logistically or financially continue to operate its then current business while trying to set up the new outfit.

Presumably the extra cash and other resources were guaranteed before it closed down, otherwise why give up a successful business and take a big hit cashflow wise unless such guarantees were in place?

I am sure I am missing something or many things here but I cannot construct a scenario of how the circumstances which has prevented re-opening taking place have come about.

There may be rivals who will be unhappy at the prospect of renewed competition but what lawsuits does the U.S. law allow which authorises what I can only assume to be a form of restraint of trade in the broadest sense of the word?

There are a lot more questions than answers at this point.

pentaxuser

You are correct that we don't know the full story. In particular, we don't know any details of the threatened lawsuits, and we should be careful to not speculate about them. However, you need to understand that in the US, the threat of a lawsuit is sometimes part of a business strategy. Even if you doubt that you would prevail in court, you might choose to threaten to sue if you suspect that your business competitor's finances would not withstand the cost of defending a suit. It's called "hardball". And yes, we probably have a few too many lawyers.

A successful business has obligations to both its customers and suppliers. To discontinue operations with only a vague promise of when they would reopen was not a very smart business decision because it left both customers and suppliers with uncertainty about the future. While J&C definitely provided a good service to their customers and the LF community in general while they were in operation, it is sad to say that they were run more as a hobby than as a business.

Campbell · May 13, 2007

"And yes, we probably have a few too many lawyers."

Gee, and I always thought lawyers represented clients who filed lawsuits. I didn't realize that a lawyer could just go around filing lawsuits without any clients.

jonw · May 13, 2007

My best wishes to John and his family. I too hope to see his B&W business become a Phoenix and go forward with providing the quality products and service he has previously made available to our photographic community.

Jon

Thomas Bertilsson · May 13, 2007

This blows!
Not that I was a big customer of theirs, but they always stepped up to the plate with 'problem' orders where something wasn't as expected. I loved dealing with them, and would have done so more if I could afford it when they were in operation.
I hope John can recover nicely from this, and come out ahead. Perhaps in the future we'll see him doing something along the same lines again. Who knows?!

- Thomas

David A. Goldfarb · May 13, 2007

I've already e-mailed my thoughts to John directly, but I would mention here that any of the East European films that J&C sold are available through fotoimpex.de. If you don't see a size you want on the website, e-mail Mirko, and he can usually arrange it. I was ordering from them before J&C was in business and used to batch order with other friends in the city to save on shipping.

Michel Hardy-Vallée · May 13, 2007

We must not forget also that on top of re-opening with new facilities, J&C wanted to get into the film coating business. I will leave it to the experts to assess the magnitude of additional headaches this might have created.

For now I can only wish good luck and good health to John in his next endeavours, and I hope that any pending issues with customers and/or business partners will be solved.

matt miller · May 13, 2007

Terrible news indeed. I wish John and his family the best. I hope he stays in touch here.

fwp · May 13, 2007

I was afraid this was going to happen when J&C first closed down. I've seen companies "suspend" operation before and they never come back. I'm sure I wasn't the only one here that thought so but still hoped against hope that we were wrong. It's a sad day and I will miss J&C!

rwyoung · May 13, 2007

R.I.P. J&C.

I do hope that things work out for John personally. Give 'em hell, John.

J&C- gone forever?

Eric Rose

Aurelien

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kwmullet

Peter Schrager

Bob Carnie

Uncle Bill

zenrhino

jovo

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JLP

roteague

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Monophoto

Campbell

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Thomas Bertilsson

David A. Goldfarb

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Michel Hardy-Vallée

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J&C- gone forever?

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