Old HC-110 vs new HC-110

[chuckroast]

Wow, I should start selling off my unopened hc-110 legacy stock. I have a bunch of it here I'll never use.

 

[campy51]

Wow, I should start selling off my unopened hc-110 legacy stock. I have a bunch of it here I'll never use.

What do you think people would pay? What is the shelf life unopened?

 

[MattKing]

What is the shelf life unopened?

Some have had success with decades old bottles.
It probably depends on the physical integrity of the bottles, and the storage condition.

 

[cptrios]

Slightly off-topic, but is there a quantifiable indicator that HC-110 has gone functionally bad? I started doing my own development at the end of 2020, and went through two bottles of HC-110 before switching to L110 (the smaller quantity makes more sense to me). Both bottles of HC went brown and developed big crystallized wafers eventually, but they still seemed to work alright. The reason I ask the question is that I do frequently get the feeling that my rolls look a little...I dunno, muddier toward the end of a bottle. I can't really be sure, though, and it seems like something I could be imagining.

 

[chuckroast]

What do you think people would pay? What is the shelf life unopened?

Well if they'll pay $95/bottle for the new crappy stuff, they would should be willing to pay even more for the real thing.

In a sealed bottle (these all are), it's good for years. If it was me, I'd open a new bottle and drain it into a brown glass bottle of similar size that has a "polycone" style cap. That would keep it for a VERY long time.

 

[pentaxuser]

Mostly around $45 per qt earlier. Of course, cost and overhead of mfg might have subsequently gone up. Ilford is dramatically raising prices overall, whether permanently, I cannot say. All kinds of inflationary issues - hangover from pandemic distribution crunch, energy costs going up, scarcity of supplies, and a very expensive Euro war going on.

What's the connection with the cost and overhead of mfg of HC 110 and the expensive war in Europe?

Thanks

pentaxuser

 

[madNbad]

Some have had success with decades old bottles.
It probably depends on the physical integrity of the bottles, and the storage condition.

With developers like HC-110 or Rodinal, I'll use four 250 ml brown glass bottles with a oral syringe and a bottle stopper. It minimizes air infusion and is a convenient way to dispense small amounts of developer.

 

[MattKing]

With developers like HC-110 or Rodinal, I'll use four 250 ml brown glass bottles with a oral syringe and a bottle stopper. It minimizes air infusion and is a convenient way to dispense small amounts of developer.

With classic HC-110, it probably isn't so much air infusion, as it is water infusion.
Fun fact: HC-110 syrup won't develop film unless you add water.
Every once in a while you would hear of someone who thought they would test their HC-110 by putting a drop of the syrup on a scrap of undeveloped film, which in turn would not blacken, and would thus lead to the erroneous conclusion that their HC-110 was dead.

 

[L Gebhardt]

Some have had success with decades old bottles.
It probably depends on the physical integrity of the bottles, and the storage condition.

The bottle is indeed a concern. I had one start leaking from a seam. It’s so thick I didn’t lose much. I transferred it to some small glass bottles and it’s still working fine. At the rate I use it it will take a while to finish that bottle and I have a few older ones that were given to me that I haven’t tried.

 

[eli griggs]

All this confusion and what seems to be too highly priced developers and "iffi" available makes me glad I can mix up the developers I want, when i want from raw chemicals.

I used HC-110 for years, with mainly Kodak Tri-x plus, and Panacronic films, Plus-X HP5+, and was very sort to see it go the way of other quality materials.

I suggest photographers learn to mix and use other chemistries/developer's, now, so a delay or withdrawal of their favorite product does no inconvenience them or interfere with their enjoyment of their work.

 

[DREW WILEY]

pentaxuser - when the cost of nearly everything goes up for any number of reasons, including the dramatic fuel and energy crunch in Europe caused by the present war, it's incumbent on manufacturers to spread out their own price increases as broadly as possible to make up the difference, or else risk going out of business. And the vast majority of chemical ingredients and plastics are themselves directly dependent upon the petrochemical industry, and its own costs.

For example, I was just down on the shoreline shooting my 6x9 this afternoon only a couple of miles away from the giant
Chevron oil refinery. Very little of what they produce goes into auto gasoline. They do output a lot of jet fuel. But the largest category is precursors to plastics and industrial chemicals. The necessary crude oil and natural gas comes in on giant barges. But since so much of that is now being diverted to sustain NATO countries and Ukraine, even here there is a distinct price increase on everything petrochemical derived.

The pandemic was strain enough. Ilford might choose spare certain marquis products from some of the increase, but it has to come from somewhere. Every little bit counts, and Ilford's own customers are less likely to scream at significant price increases to minor developer categories than to some favorite film or printing paper. But it's evident that most everything has gotten a lot more expensive in recently, and even hard to get in many instances.

 

[pentaxuser]

Thanks for the reply, Drew.

pentaxuser