Made in Spain film. Made in France Paper

The thread on Jesops 100 had mention of Film marked "Made in Spain."

I recall using some 120 many years ago that was just marked "film Pan 24" and "made in Spain" Who was making film in spain? (and what happened to them.

Related

My last box of AGFA RC paper is marked "made in France" Was that a subsiduary, a contractor, or is there more factories still hiding in the woods. I guess the box is getting up to ten years old.

There used to be a Spanish film brand called something like Telco but I think it was acquired many years ago by a larger company like Agfa or Ciba. "Made in" often does not mean "manufactured in" rather it can mean the product was assembled and packed in that country from imported components. Over the years various Kodak products have been more correctly labelled "Finished in XXXX by Kodak (xxxxx) from materials manufactured by the Eastman Kodak Company, Kodak Pathe, Kodak Ltd etc ".
Agfa RC Multicontrast paper was marked "Made in France" up to the last box I was ever able to buy. I have read somewhere that Agfa did have a manufacturing facility in the south of France but what it actually made I have no idea. I also saw an assertion here on APUG that some Agfa Multicontrast was coated by Ilford.
Who knows where stuff comes from - as long as it does the job it was bought to do it probably matters little.
OzJohn

cmacd123 said:

The thread on Jesops 100 had mention of Film marked "Made in Spain."

I recall using some 120 many years ago that was just marked "film Pan 24" and "made in Spain" Who was making film in spain? (and what happened to them.

[...]

Click to expand...

Valca and Negra were film producers from Spain.

Valca (from Bilbao, north of Spain) last business account balance is from 1992. Its main activity was movie film, although they produced two very popular films: "F22" and "HH29"


Is difficult to find information about Negra. All I can remember is that they had a Pan 100 ISO film


(pictures taken from the internet)

Dear OzJohn,

Telco was a Swiss based coater that was acquired by Ciba-Geigy before they bought ILFORD back in the 60's.

You may well be thinking of Valca ( see above ).

All AGFA Baryta based product was coated in France.

Simon ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology Limited :

Two years ago I was on holliday in Spain and discoverd somewhere in a kind of bush an old building. After inspection of there was something from interest to take pictures. I found out that it was an formely filmfactory.
There was some security but I discoverd that in they where not there in the weekends.
So, I slipt in and take some pictures. Only the most of the machinery was removed and all other stuff was left behind. It was a terrible mess in the chemical storage where i take the picture from the mask. In the darkroom area it seems they left just the building for a break or something.
The picture from the sink was made near the coating facilties.
I found also a 35mm color film somewhere.


Sorry for the bad quality of the pictures because I don't use a scanner.

Fascinating pictures, hka. Where was this old factory?

About 60 km South-west from Bilbao-Spain, in the surroundings of Aguera.

From what has been posted above, it seems clear that at least one of the Spanish companies, Valco, did their own coating.

The other company mentioned, Negra, were Negra Industrial, S A. based in Barcelona. There is a high possibility that they coated their own materials too, especially as Spain did not enter the European Union until 1986. It may well be that the entry to the EU, which would have exposed the Spanish film making companies to competition from Kodak, Agfa etc, is what put eventually them out of business. I don't now what happened to Negra, but they certainly don't seem to be in film manufacture.

In around 1987/88 a London photographic store, I thing it was A W Young, long out of business, was selling Negra's Negrapan 21 (ISO 100) panchromatic film in 127, 110 and 126 sizes at very low prices. I bought large quantities of all, some of which are still in my freezer. These had 1989 expiry dates so would have been manufactured around 1986/87. I recall they were described as the last runs. I assumed that referred to those particular sizes, as Negra also made 35mm & 120 films. However it may have meant that Negra were closing film production completely at that time. I have never seen any Negra films since.

As to the Jessops film made in Spain, which I posted about in the other thread, there is no reason to think it was not fully manufactured in Spain. It would have make no difference to Jessops where it was manufactured, so I take the statement on the box "Made in Spain" at face value. As the expiry date was 2002, it would have been manufactured probably between 1998 & 2000. Which factory was still operating then, I have no idea. To further complicate things, I believe there was a third coating facility in Spain, but the name escapes me. I know from what I read that they did x-ray & medical films, maybe they did consumer films as well? What we tend to forget, or not know, is that even 25 years ago. there were dozens of factories making photographic film, in Europe, and elsewhere. Go back a further 25 years, and you can probably double the numbers!