Old chemistry

I just got a bunch of stuff from my local FreeCycle, of that bunch is 2 bottles of chemistry.

1. Ilford Universal Rapid Fixer - 1/2 full - visually clear - smells strong of sulfur
2. Ilford PQ Universal Paper Developer - 7/8 full - dark reddish brown - very mild smell

Are these worth even messing with or should they go right in the tihs can?

Fixer will be fine, but developer has oxidized.

If the fixer smells of sulfur, it might be bad. It is hard to say. Look for scale on the inside of the bottle or any precipitate.

PE

I'm not so sure about the fixer. Once you start getting that sulfur smell, it's a sure sign that the thiosulfate is breaking down. It might have some life left in it, and it certainly won't hurt to try as long as you have some fresh fixer standing by in case it's shot. Toss it if there is any precipitate in the bottle. The developer is almost surely gone. If it's paper developer (which this is) give it a shot. At worst you've wasted a test strip. I'd never use anything that looked even remotely "off" on film.

I assume these have been open since 2003 so I was going to toss them anyway. But I figured I'd ask. I have all brand new chemistry to play with anyway, but well I got a tray out of the deal Gotta love FreeCycle

Not directly relevant perhaps but I have a partially used bottle of Nova print developer which I suspect is similar. This one has remained unused since about May 2006. It was abandoned when I got a bottle of Ilford Cooltone at the June 2006 Ilford factory tour. Anyway I tried it again a couple of weeks ago and despite it being "best before April 2006" it worked. Difficult to say whether it worked as well as new fresh dev but I couldn't see any issues. It too was dark red - a bit like Coca Cola! The only issue seems to be its loss of strength in the Nova Quad slot. It has already died. Fresh Nova dev which was made up about 2-3 weeks ago would still be good, kept in a Quad processor.

I've made up fresh and will try again tonight. Even if it doesn't work I regard this as testament to Nova developer's longevity. It's now 2 years past its best before date. That's value for money in my book.

pentaxuser