Oriental New Seagull fiber - who makes it?!??!

[M Carter]

Man... every time I print with that stuff, I love it more. For some time I've settled on MGWT as my standard paper for testing and working out prints (I do a lot of lith but try to suss out the details with straight printing) and for testing new film and developer combos. But every time I work with the New Seagull, it's just so snappy and the tonality looks really special. Maybe I just picked some lucky negs, I dunno. Both the warmtone and regular fiber gloss emulsions are such nice papers, and the weight and feel of the paper itself is really good. It's sort of a heavy and stiff feel.

But curious - there was some conjecture that they were Ilford emulsions, or manufactured by Ilford for Oriental. The packages say "Made in Japan" though. Is there actually a functional coating plant in Japan, still cranking out premium paper?? (The stuff does float in the wash like Ilford...) Inquiring mind I guess.

 

[brian steinberger]

Are you referring to the current VCFB-II? It appears to be unavailable right now, in the US anyway. I too love that paper and am hopeful it will return as a version III.

 

[Dali]

Foma maybe?

 

[M Carter]

Yes, particularly the warmtone, but both emulsions are really nice. But it is a bit harder to get, I can buy MGWT off the shelf in my town, or get bigger sheets from Adorama/etc.

Still really curious if there's actually a paper coating plant in Japan somewhere...

 

[brian steinberger]

Regardless of where it’s made, I’m not so sure these papers are being made currently. I’m hoping they’re just under going some sort of re-formulation. Everything on B&H is special order and that’s only the warmtone. Freestyle doesn’t list any oriental products currently.

I have sent an email to orientalusa. We’ll see if I get a response.

 

[Guillaume Zuili]

They told me at Freestyle that it was made by Foma. But that was a while ago when version II had just been released.